


Defender

by cagestark



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adult!Peter, Eventual Smut, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, Peter isn't having any of that, Protective!Peter, Strong!Peter, The Avengers mistreat Tony, badass!Peter, insecure!Tony
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2020-12-21 18:15:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21060242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cagestark/pseuds/cagestark
Summary: To fill this prompt (I got out of hand): I was thinking of a separate universe where Tony, and all that he provides, is taken for granted by most of the other Avengers. Pete's the new recruit, and he's not cool with any of that.Or: the fic where Tony finds a stray who sees the good in him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this will be the longest fic i've written for you all yet.

The first time he meets the spider-kid, it is after hours on the eighty-second floor of the main building of Stark Tower.

But the kid is on the wrong side of the glass.

“FRIDAY, run that by me again,” Tony says. He’s in his pajamas—a pair of hastily pulled on pants with not even boxers underneath, donned only when FRI sounded the alarm. The holographic video plays in front of him, but what it shows him makes no sense. It isn’t even possible. “What exactly am I seeing?”

“Fifteen minutes ago sensors on the first floor were triggered, suggesting a human presence. On closer examination, the intruder seems to be scaling the side of the building using grip enhancements that I can’t identify.”

“Okay, but is he doing what I _think_ he’s doing?”

“Do you think he appears to be washing the windows, boss? Because all signs point to such.”

As they speak, the figure (barefoot—_barefoot_ and more than eighty floors above Manhattan) dressed head-to-toe in black including a dark balaclava that obscures their features, pulls a squeegee from where it is secured to a multi-purpose belt around their waist. They wipe the glass clean in long, smooth strokes, flicking the water and soap off behind them. The way they move across the glass gives him goosebumps, makes him shiver with terror and awe.

He takes the elevator down from the Penthouse, passing the Avengers’ floor where the others are sleeping peacefully (God knows he doesn’t want to wake any of _them_ up). There’s no indication that this person is a threat—and if they were a threat, this is hardly a dastardly plan.

The eighty-third floor is dark and quiet. It’s an accounting floor where they work to manage his assets and the company’s assets. He passes cubicles on his left and right, and though he visits this floor maybe once a month or less, he feels at home here. The entire building is home to him, and he knows it the way Steve and Bucky knew their tiny homes in Brooklyn, the way Clint knows the farm his wife maintains.

The south wall is entirely glass. Tony stands back in the shadows to watch as the dark figure crawls from east to west. They become preoccupied when they realize that their bare feet are leaving smudges on the glass, and their floundering is—well, it’s almost cute.

Tony approaches that glass cautiously, unwilling to startle person and send them plummeting to their death. When they pass by, squeegee pressed to the glass, the freeze with their face just inches from Tony’s. The balaclava has goggles on over it to obscure the person’s eyes, but Tony doesn’t need to see those eyes to know they are wide with alarm.

Grabbing a paper and pen from a nearby cubicle, he writes a quick message and presses it to the glass.

MEET ME ON THE ROOF.

They stare at the paper for so long that Tony begins to question their literacy. But then they attach the squeegee back to their belt and lift the bottom half of the balaclava. They reveal a cut, angular jaw and thin lips. Leaning in, they come so close to the glass that Tony thinks they’re going to kiss right where Tony’s mouth is—but instead they heave a silent breath, and in the fog of it, write with one bare finger: NO.

“Are you kidding me, right now?” Tony mutters. He uncaps the pen again, holding it in his teeth, and writes on the other side of the paper. TRESPASSING!

They breathe again, write: BUSY. Then they squeegee over the words and continue on like they aren’t dangling 1200 feet above Manhattan.

“Boss?” FRIDAY says. “I believe I’ve pegged the identity of our intruder. It wasn’t until he wrote on the glass that I was able to get a decent map of his fingerprints; all other readings keep coming back inconclusive. His name is Peter Parker. He was hired by Stark Industries in early August as a member of the maintenance department. Twenty years old, native of Queens, emergency contact is one May Parker, also of Queens—”

“Thank you for solving the mystery, Velma, any ideas on why he’s acting like an oversized microfiber cloth on my building’s glass at the devil’s hour?

“Jinkies, Shaggy, I’m an intelligent digital assistant, not a mind reader.”

“Shaggy? You’re grounded, baby. I’m a Fred guy all the way.”

“If anything, boss, you’re most similar to Daphne. But according to Mr. Parker’s recently opened emails, the maintenance department was mandated just yesterday to wash the windows on the main, north, and south towers. It appears Mr. Parker is getting a head—and unorthodox—start.”

“This maniac _works_ for me?” Tony mutters. He follows along the window while the kid cleans, though he loses him when Parker crosses around the corner of the building and disappears onto the west side. “How the hell is he sticking to the window, FRI?”

“I can’t tell, boss. Diagnostics can’t find anything between his hands and the windows, but whenever he is sticking, the characteristics of his fingerprints change. It appears he grows scopulae.”

“Scopulae? As in, spider hair?” Tony stands at the window for several long minutes, lost in thought. At last, he heads back towards the elevator, shivering in the air conditioning. Instead of asking FRIDAY to take him to the floor Parker is currently cleaning (Floor 69, as of now), he tells her to take him back up to the penthouse. If the kid’s enhanced, then he’s safer on climbing the walls than anyone else Tony knows.

Not to mention, the windows are fucking spotless.

-

Peter is up to his eyes in the HVAC unit of zone 3 in the Stark Tower main building when his ears pick up the sound of the elevator door opening on the other side of the floor. With a building as tall as Stark Tower, heating and cooling takes division of the building into several zones with their own separate units. Zone three is for floors twenty-four through thirty-six—and twenty-four in particular, where the HVAC home base is, is a marketing floor. People here come and go without noticing him, walking briskly and talking on their phones. The elevators open and close all day long, but something about this particular incoming occupant has the office going silent.

The hairs raise all over Peter’s arms and legs. _Danger_? he wonders. But then he hears the murmuring of voices, a name said over and over in reverence: Mr. Stark. Tony Stark.

_Tony Stark_. The man who had caught Peter scaling the side of his supertall last night. Emblazoned in Peter’s memory is the image of the man coming out of the darkness on the other side of the glass, wearing nothing but some low-slung pajama pants. And who knew that Tony Stark, forty-plus years old still had the remnants of a six pack? Peter had been distracted for the rest of the night, even almost losing his grip around floor 21. Which wouldn’t have killed him (probably) but would have been very shocking to anyone walking down below on the street.

And now the man is on Peter’s floor? Well. It doesn’t take a genius to know what’s coming.

“Fuck,” Peter mutters. He immediately starts packing away his tools, tucking his hat down lower on his forehead to obscure his brow. His senses activate accidentally and suddenly a wrench is stuck to his hand and he shakes and shakes but for the life of him, it won’t come off—

“Well, hello.”

The wrench goes flying out of Peter’s hand, and _Tony Stark_ barely manages to dodge it as it careens by him, hitting the wall and denting the plaster. They stare at each other, eyes wide, neither of them expecting such a thing to have happened and not being entirely sure how to proceed. The man is even more handsome in the light, eyes like the whiskey he drinks, hair immaculate and threaded with grays around the temples, lips full and curving into a smile. Fuck, Peter has had a crush on this guy since his Uncle Ben took him to a Stark Expo more than a decade ago. Seeing him in the flesh is almost too much to handle.

“Sorry,” Peter mutters, going to pick up the wrench.

“Don’t be. You’d be surprised how often I get that reaction.” He sticks out a hand, and Peter’s got no fucking clue what Tony wants him to do with it until the older man wiggles his fingers. For a business guy by day (and a suited superhero by night), Stark’s hands are calloused and strong. He looks Peter in the eye, gaze soft and unassuming, like he isn’t the most powerful man in the business world, like Peter isn’t some gum he’s tracked in on his shoe.

“I’m sorry for the wall, too,” Peter says. “I’ll fix that.”

“No, you won’t.”

Peter’s shoulders hunch. Of course, he won’t. Stark’s going to fire him. Peter will be back to shelter hopping and picking pockets until he finds another job. At least now he might have some references from coworkers who all seem to have taken to Peter, the youngest of their troop. The quiet woman Sam saves him a seat every lunch hour in the breakroom, and Carlito has started asking his wife to pack him two sandwiches so he can give one to Peter. Everyone has been so nice.

Peter should have known it wouldn’t last.

“You’ll be much too busy, I imagine,” Stark says. He takes the toolbox from Peter, like Peter is some dainty girl who can’t carry her own books to class, or something. Like a gentleman might. Peter is keenly aware of everyone’s gaze on them while the older man escorts him to the elevator. It must look ridiculous: Peter in his dirty work clothes, sneakers taped together, walking beside _Tony Stark_.

“Are you calling the cops on me?” Peter asks when the elevator door closes. He can tell that it’s moving upwards and not downwards, though—

“Why would I do that?” Stark asks. He’s wearing tinted glasses, and it’s a crime, because he’s so fucking pretty Peter would kill to see his face without them.

“Because of last night.”

Stark’s face smooths out. “I wasn’t sure if we were going to pretend like I didn’t know it was you—but I guess this makes it all a lot easier on my part. No, I’m not calling the cops on you.”

The elevator opens on the most lux penthouse Peter has ever seen: modern decore with glass tables and marble countertops and windows that show Manhattan below them like a toy city that Peter could step out and crush if he so felt like. The wood floors are polished and gleaming under Peter’s disgusting tennis shoes, and he’s never felt more out of place and more at home all at once.

“Thirsty? Hungry? I’ve got leftovers, if you don’t mind my germs. If you do mind my germs, I can order in for you. What do you like? Any food allergies?” Stark’s head pops up from where it had disappeared into the refrigerator. With narrowed eyes, he assesses Peter’s silence.

“Water would be—that’d be cool.”

“Sparkling? Distilled? Alkaline?”

“Uh—tap?”

“Excuse me, _tap_?” Stark shuts the door with a thud. “Now I am calling the cops. Seriously. You? Sit.”

Peter sits at the stool tucked beneath the island countertop. The marble cools his heated palms when he presses them against it. Despite his words, the man does not make any move to call anyone. He moves a Styrofoam dish to the microwave and heats up something that smells lovely, like marinara and basil. He cracks open a bottle of water and places it in front of Peter. It’s the crispest, most tasteless water he’s ever had. Probably harvested from mountainous glaciers or something.

At last Stark joins him on the other side of the island, sitting the dish of—yes, pasta—between them. He hands Peter a fork. “Dig in, kid,” he says. “I don’t have cooties.”

_What the fuck_, Peter thinks as he shares pasta with Tony Stark. Unbidden to his mind comes a scene from some Disney movie, when the two dogs share the piece of spaghetti and it makes them kiss. Just the idea of it has Peter staring resolutely at the wall of cabinets, chewing mechanically, hoping his face isn’t as red as it feels.

“Shall we talk shop while we eat?” Stark asks, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin.

Peter shrugs. He has no idea why he’s here. No idea what shop this man could possibly have to talk about with the likes of him.

“You’ve got mad skills,” he says at last. Stark lays his phone flat on the table and from it comes a holographic projection. Peter watches himself in 3-D scale the side of Stark Tower. Yeah, he looks pretty cool—except for the squeegee. That’s kind of dorky. “How are you doing that?”

“It’s—a long story,” Peter says, rubbing his thumb against the prongs of his fork. Society has made a lot of advancements regarding its treatment of enhanced humans, but there’s still a minority of people who are afraid in their ignorance. It was on the news last week when Peter was killing time in a McDonalds before he could arrive at work to Stark Tower: an enhanced teenager was murdered by some concerned townsfolk who believed she was destroying the crops with her weather-controlling capabilities.

He can feel Stark’s gaze on him. It makes him bristle, makes his shoulders hunch. Peter doesn’t do well with authority—that is, most authority seems to just use and abuse Peter. He’s suddenly keenly aware of how vulnerable he is right now: a twenty-year-old with no family, no friends to come looking for him, in the penthouse of the most powerful man in the world who has perfect blackmail material on him. Peter’s palms start to sweat, and he wipes them on his pants.

“Are you going to hurt me?” Peter asks, voice low and quiet. He can’t look. But he has to know—has to prepare himself.

Stark stands, abruptly. “No—Parker. Peter. Look at me.”

Peter does, his jaw clenched and eyes flat. He might be scared, but he’s no coward. Only, Stark doesn’t look anything like a man who is about to hurt him. His mouth is downturned in the softest expression of tragedy that Peter’s ever seen. “I’ve just realized,” Stark says. “This won’t do. I need Burger King.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Burger King. Don’t you know that I’m an eccentric billionaire, doomed to give in to my every whim? And my whims want a Whopper. Come on. Grab your metaphorical coat—or your literal coat. Should we stop by the maintenance floor?” Stark strolls to a closet and rifles through it, pulling out a long, dark, very expensive looking coat. Peter can almost feel it under his fingers, it must be so soft. “Kid? Are you hearing me?”

“I don’t have a coat.”

“Alright, take one of mine. Let’s go. My stomach waits for no one.”

When Peter tries to step onto the elevator behind Stark without grabbing a coat, the man insists on going back in and finding one for him. The billionaire puts him in a half dozen coats made of the soften Italian wools and genuine cashmeres, before settling on one that’s very similar to Mr. Stark’s, only with a collar that Peter can pulls up around his throat to keep the wind away. It smells clean, but faintly of cologne, like the man has worn it out recently and put it away without washing it. Thank God the coat is thick enough to hide the semi he sports.

They end up hiding in a booth in the back of a Burger King two blocks away, both of them with Whoppers and Large Fries and Cokes. Peter inhales his—an enhanced appetite, not to mention the general lack of food he suffers from on a typical day’s basis—but Tony keeps up, holding his own. He takes out his phone and sits it on the table again, tapping several buttons, and suddenly Peter’s head throbs a little, senses spiking.

“Is that bothering you? I’m using it to scramble anything we say from being overheard by anyone around us, but we can do it the old-fashioned way if we must—you know. Whispering.”

“It’s fine—that’s, that’s _amazing_.”

Stark blinks. “I—thanks. I made it.”

“I figured—how does it work? Can you tell me?”

And the man humors him. Actually humors him, explaining in laymen’s terms even though he might be surprised at the level of conversation Peter could keep up with. When Peter asks a question, the other man grins showing neat, white teeth that Peter would give anything to run his tongue along.

“You’ve been really nice,” Peter says when their food is gone and cups nothing but ice. It’s an understatement, because this is the nicest anyone has treated Peter in a long, long time, and the way Stark talks and looks at him isn’t condescending or pitying. It’s like he sees Peter as a human. “But why am I here? So, you _know_. About me. What are you going to do?”

“Nothing,” Stark says. “It’s not illegal to be enhanced. And while it is illegal to trespass, mostly it’s very unsafe to do it more than a quarter mile above the ground, so I do ask that anymore night time adventures aren’t spent scaling my building.”

“Okay,” Peter agrees. “I just wanted to make it easier for the other guys. They really look out for me. I didn’t want to make them have to work so hard, when I could do it so easily.”

“That’s very generous of you, Peter. May I call you Peter?”

Peter shrugs.

“I’ll take that as a yes—and you can call me Tony, okay kid? I’m not here to call the cops or to fire you. As a matter of fact, I want to offer you a job. Tentatively.”

“You want to promote me?” Peter asks, brow furrowing.

“It’s hardly a promotion. The hours are longer. The pay is—well, under the table. There’s danger too. Potentially mortal peril.

“Tell me, Peter, what do you know about the Avengers?”


	2. Chapter 2

Everybody knows about the Avengers. They are the team of fantastically trained (and sometimes genetically enhanced) individuals who protect the world from intergalactic threats. For an enhanced teenager, they have been Peter’s heroes since he was bit by the radioactive spider as a teenager. Rumor had it that they were a great big family, all living together in Stark Tower and having game nights and private parties. He’d read a thought-provoking article on who would be Black Widow’s baby’s godfather, Tony, Steve, Bucky, or Clint—and Natasha Romanov isn’t even _pregnant_.

It takes only fifteen minutes spent with them for Peter to see that he never should have taken Tony’s offer to join them in the first place. This is no family. At least, not the kind of family that Peter grew up with (though _that_ family had all died off one by one), not the idealized family built on affection and mutual respect.

Maybe that _is_ how it is—when Tony isn’t there.

“I’m the head of this team, you should have contacted me before extending Peter an invitation to join us.” Captain America, perhaps the most famous superhuman _ever_, stands at the side of the room in sweatpants and a tight t-shirt berating Tony when he thinks that Peter can’t hear. Peter keeps his face blank, staring around the room like he’s in wonder. It’s a beautiful room. There are exposed rafters—those would be so cool to hang from. But then a figure catches his eye and he sees there’s a man already perched up there, reading a magazine. _Hawkeye_, Peter knows. The man waves, and Peter waves back tentatively.

“I made several calls—did those not go through? Oh. You know what? Maybe I just _considered_ making the calls and then thought better of it—”

“This is exactly why Fury is always on your back, Tony. You act first and think later. We don’t know this kid, don’t know how he meshes with the team, there’s not a room for him—”

“Not a room? This is my Tower, there’s more than ninety floors and a thousand rooms, I’ll find one for him. And for what it’s worth, he meshes just fabulously with me, Cap.”

“I can’t imagine why that thought doesn’t comfort me. Maybe it’s because the last thing we need on this team is another version of you.”

Tony laughs unhappily, and the sound makes Peter’s hands turn to fists he clenches in his lap. This isn’t the version of Tony Stark that the media sells at all. It isn’t even the man who sat with Peter at the Burger King talking about noise scrambling techniques. “You don’t have to worry about that. If anything, he’s got all my good traits and none of the bad ones.”

“_What_ good traits?” Captain America mutters, rubbing at his forehead. Maybe it was even too quiet for Tony to hear, considering the man doesn’t reply.

But Peter hears it. _Oh_, he hears it.

Peter knows this at once: the family he had tentatively hoped he would receive?—he _won’t receive_. Whether it exists or not remains to be seen, but Peter vows then and there that he will not enter into any family that treats Tony the way he’s being treated now. It should be ridiculous: Tony is arguably the most powerful of all of them. He has enough wealth and resources to destroy them, not to mention an ultra-powerful suit with a mysterious endless power source. But when faced with this opposition in his teammate, he seems to crumble. To grow vulnerable.

Peter doesn’t like people who prey on the vulnerable.

“Peter,” Tony says when Captain America and he return to where they left him on the sofa. “This is the one, the only Captain America. He goes by many names—”

“But you can call me Steve. Nice to meet you.” The man is classically handsome with an excellent jawline, blue eyes, and blonde hair. He holds out a hand and Peter takes it—

—grips it. Then _tighter_, testing the strength. Peter lets himself grip tighter than he is careful to with un-enhanced humans, and he feels Steve change his own grip accordingly. The smile the man wears stays in place, but a furrow grows between the well-shaped eyebrows. This can’t be Steve’s full strength, though. More—Peter has to know. He squeezes _more_, just a little, their hands bobbing up and down in the mockery of a greeting. Bones would have cracked, if either of them weren’t enhanced, and the look in Steve’s eyes knows it.

All the time, Tony is talking. His voice flows over Peter like soothing white noise.

Peter squeezes just a little more—and there. Steve cringes, pulling his hand away just the slightest, a reflexive action to avoid the pain of Peter’s grip. Immediately, the younger man loosens his fingers.

Steve is strong.

But he’s not as strong as Peter. Not even close. And there’s a dark, scary part of Peter’s mind that thinks: _Good_. It feels good to know that he’s the physically strongest in the room, that he can use this strength to defend <strike>Tony</strike> himself, if needed. Even as he thinks it, it sounds ridiculous. Why would he need to defend himself from Captain America, the most notorious ‘good guy’ alive? Peter feels numb.

“—after that we all went to grab some shawarma, and _wow_, you two are really digging that handshake,” Tony mutters. He pulls his tinted glasses out of his breast pocket and replaces them on his face. “Should I give you a moment? Leave the room?”

“What?” Steve asks. He breaks their handshake. Out of the corner of Peter’s eye, he sees the man flexing his fingers. “No. Of course not. Let’s all sit down and talk.”

Peter does his best to curb the rest of his impulses. It helps to have Tony there next to him, a warm, (shockingly) quiet presence while Steve interrogates him. Peter gives them the watered-down version of his history: a radioactive spider bit him when he was a teenager and gave him the powers, he can stick to walls, his senses are enhanced, and he’s stronger.

“How strong?” Steve asks.

Peter meets his gaze flatly. “Very strong.”

“Any training?”

“No.”

Steve gives Tony a _look_. The hairs on Peter’s arms take notice, an animal instinct that feels threatened. In a handful of hours, he (and his enhanced senses) have come to see Tony as something precious, someone to be protected.

“I’ll take full responsibility for him,” Tony says flippantly. “I’ve already starting working on specs for his get-up. All he needs is the obligatory t-shirt all the Avengers get, and to pass Fury’s background check. Hope you don’t have any exo-skeletons in your closet, kid, because Eyepatch is going to find them.”

The young man’s stomach drops. There are a million tiny things this ‘Eyepatch’ might find. All the thievery Peter has done to stay alive, picking pockets for cash to buy food, stealing chips at 7-11’s so he can scarf them down in the alleyway, licking the crumbs from his bony fingers. Maybe he’ll find out about Peter’s previous employer, or the time Peter got his own uncle killed.

“Kid?” Tony says. “That silence isn’t reassuring.”

Just to break that silence, he asks: “Do the Avengers really all get t-shirts?”

-

There are no more bedrooms on the Avengers’ floor, so Tony takes it upon himself to house Peter on his own personal penthouse floor (which, apparently, has four guest rooms). Peter shakes when he stands in the middle of the room larger than the apartment he grew up in with his aunt and uncle. It smells clean, the sheets are fresh and smooth, there’s an attached bathroom with heated floors. All of these are luxuries for a kid who sometimes slept on benches until beat cops came to push him off to the next one.

But what really has him shaking is the fact that three rooms away is _Tony Stark’s_ bedroom. That he’ll be sharing living spaces with _Tony Stark_. In the evenings if Peter wants to relax and watch television in the main room, _Tony Stark_ might be there too, relaxing in an armchair with a glass of whiskey beside him, jacket off and sleeves rolled up, tapping away at a StarkPad. The man is so handsome, so kind. He’s changed Peter’s entire life in the course of a single day, and all when he could have just handed him over to the police.

“What do you think, kid?” Tony asks, leaning against the doorframe. “Not big enough for you? The one beside mine is bigger. Don’t be reasonable on my account. That’s not one of my few virtues.”

Peter opens his mouth to say _no, it’s fine_—but then, why the fuck would he want to say no? “Actually Mr. Stark—could I see the other room?”

“A kid after my own heart. Come on, I’ll show it to you.”

-

Tony has more than just began musing over specs for Peter’s suit. The next morning he greets Peter with burnt toast and a glass of OJ. Dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt, he tells Peter that they’re going to spend the morning down in his lab where he can get proper scans for the suit he’s creating. They’re also going to run tests to learn more about Peter’s abilities.

“What kind of tests, Mr. Stark?” Peter asks, eating every last bite of the burnt toast, even though it’s awful. _Tony Stark made it!_ (And it’s not until later that he finds out it wasn’t Tony at all but a sweet little robot the man created, one who was prone to burning the toast and leaving the toilet seat up after it cleans and getting tangled in the blinds (which Tony finally had to do away with)) When Peter hears the word tests, he can’t help but remember the pictures in his textbooks of enhanced humans in cages like lab rats. He wished they were old, faded photos, relics of history, but they weren’t. Crisp, clear, and in color. From less than twenty years ago.

“I’m most interested in examining your scopulae—that’s the—”

“The hairs on a spider’s legs that it uses to stick to even slick surfaces. Yeah, I did a lot of research after I got bit,” Peter says, brushing crumbs from his shirt. Is there butter on his mouth? He squints at the shiny door of the elevator but it’s no replacement for a mirror. He subtly wipes his hand across his mouth anyway. “I’m still waiting to lay eggs, to be honest.”

Tony looks torn between laughing and crying. “We—will deal with that, if it should ever happen. Later. _Never_, hopefully.”

The tests turn out to be nothing scary. All he has to do is place his hands flat on these special sensors, ones that tingle with power and electricity. The lab itself is incredible, the place of Peter’s dreams. He’s always longed to go back to school and pursuing something in the science field, but growing up poor and only getting poorer hadn’t left a lot of room for educational advancement. This lab though is a place of magic, and FRIDAY? Well—Peter thinks he might love her.

“Can you see these googly eyes he’s giving you baby girl?” Tony asks the disembodied voice, a pencil between his teeth. Peter swoons. The way Tony talks to his tech is—well Peter wouldn’t mind being on the other end of that sweettalk.

“It’s safe to say my circuitry is blushing, boss,” FRIDAY says to both of their amusement.

When he asks Peter to take his shirt off so Tony can apply some electrodes to monitor his heart rate and blood pressure, he blinks at the sight of Peter’s newly-exposed abs. Peter can’t help but flex under the dark gaze. Living rough has him skinnier than he’s ever been, but the spider bite turned every last bit of him into muscle. Objectively, he can admit that it’s rather impressive looking. Tony clearly thinks so, with the way he swallows and adjusts his glasses before applying the electrodes, careful not to touch Peter’s skin no matter how desperately the younger man wants him to.

Around lunch time, Tony asks, “Pizza, Pete? Am I appealing to the whole room when I say pizza?”

_Pete_. Fuck. No one’s given him a nickname in…forever, it feels. Peter swallows around the lump in his throat and rubs his empty stomach. “Enhanced appetite. I’m never going to turn down a meal, Mr. Stark.”

“You hear that, FRI?” Tony says. “Order pizza from my usual place, and start ordering double groceries for delivery. Any allergies, kid?”

“No.”

After splitting a large New York style pizza with Tony Stark, Peter sits on a stool a table away (so the man has plenty of room to work) and watches. It’s warm, his eyes are heavy lidded, stomach full and sated. This is the happiest and most comfortable he’s been in a long time. Since May passed, at least. _I made it, May_, he thinks to himself, eyes stinging. All the hours she worked trying to provide for him, all the lessons she tried to impart it. Now Peter has a purpose. He’s going to be working to help keep the world safe. And he’s _secure_.

He’ll do whatever it takes to keep this opportunity.

“Do you and Captain America have a long history?” Peter asks.

Tony doesn’t even glance up from his work. “Cap and I? Yeah, we go way back.”

“I don’t like—” Peter manages to stop himself, but just too late. The relaxed atmosphere relaxed his tongue too, drunk on the warmth and good company. The words are out there now, and the way Tony’s eyes flicker up shows that he’s listening, waiting for the sentence to complete itself. “—I don’t like the way he treats you. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. He’s just, he’s not very nice to you, is he?”

Tony sits back on his stool, rubbing at his jaw like it aches. “How he treats me? He doesn’t treat me any differently than anyone else, I suppose. Everyone is—well, they’re nice enough.”

“Would you let him talk to me the way he talks to you?” Peter asks.

Tony blinks, presses his lips together in a thin line; Peter can tell that he’s doing the math in his head and not liking the outcome. Maybe it’s too soon for him to make a gamble like that, to assume that this man cares about Peter enough to give a damn whether Steve talks down to him. But he has a feeling that Tony Stark cares about most people. Even Peter.

“I wouldn’t,” he says at last, and Peter didn’t know that his heart could soar even as it twists. “But we’re not exactly the same person, kid.” He goes back to being hunched over the lab table. There’s a hologram of a gloved hand that the man twists and turns with just the prodding of his fingers. “Maybe we Avengers aren’t all best friends like the media portrays, but they don’t treat me any differently than what I deserve.”

“You deserve _way_ better than that,” Peter says.

That makes Tony look up, his face turned blue with illuminated light. The intensity of his expression might make a lesser man look away, but Peter is unflinching. Unyielding; Eventually, he gives Peter a smile that is equal parts happy and sad, a flower blooming right before the first frost that will surely wither it away. With a snap of his fingers, the hologram melts into the table and disappears. “How about we call it quits for the day. You’re off the hook. Run along now—do whatever kids do. Scram.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the reception for last chapter blew me away. i hope i don't disappoint you. let me know your thoughts and find me on tumblr @ cagestark.


	3. Chapter 3

‘Whatever kids do’ (_I’m twenty fucking years old_, Peter thinks to himself) turns out to be just sitting in his room, climbing the walls. Literally. Unfortunately, there aren’t any spiders making nests in the corners of the room, but at least he tried to find kin.

He takes the plastic bag out of his backpack, the one that hold his trackphone and charger. Now with an increased paycheck, he’ll be able to afford a real phone, one that he doesn’t have to risk turning on just once or twice a day to preserve the battery. There aren’t any messages, but Peter hadn’t really expected any different. He turns it off and tucks it back into the waterproof bag.

After a time, Peter begins to feel like maybe he’s hiding in his room. He’s hungry—and he lives here now, right, so why shouldn’t he just go out into the kitchen and make himself a sandwich? But every time he reaches for the doorknob, he chickens out. What if Mr. Stark is out there? Peter’s dressed in the only casual clothes he owns, a pair of warm sweatpants and a long-sleeve flannel shirt. Hardly appropriate attire to be seen in by a billionaire. By _Tony Stark._

But the hunger wins out sometime around eight in the evening. So he carefully nudges the door to his room open and slips out.

He swallows a gasp, heart hammering when he spots Tony sitting on the leather couch with his socked feet up on the coffee table. Schematics are scattered everywhere, and his StarkPad is displaying something in 3D—_fuck_ that’s so cool. The television is on, muted, the History channel playing a documentary on Ancient Egypt. A glass of mostly empty whiskey sits perched in one of the man’s tanned hands.

Quiet as he tried to be, some noise must slip out because Tony’s head turns. He looks wide awake for the late hour. “Hey, kid,” Tony says, eyebrows lifting. “You’re so quiet in there, I honestly forgot you were here.”

“I get that a lot,” Peter mumbles. He points to the kitchen, one hand absently trying to pat at his curls and decide if he looks like a hot-mess or just a mess-mess. “Can I get something to eat?”

“Mi casa es su casa, now. Literally. Help yourself to whatever you like, and if you want to keep me from eating something, put your name on it or hide it behind the vegetables.”

Peter snorts. “Noted. I just didn’t know if I was like, supposed to pay for my own groceries first. I don’t have any money.” He’s been spending his SI checks on motel rooms so that he’s not sleeping outdoors, but the other man doesn’t need to know _that_.

“Nobody pays for their groceries,” Tony says absently, already looking back to the hologram projected by his StarkPad. He prods at something with the end of his pencil. “Just eat what you want and let me know if you want me to order you something special.”

“Nobody pays for their food?” Peter mutters, looking into the refrigerator. It’s stocked with everything he could possibly want, and several things he can’t even name: fruits of strange shapes and colors, cheeses that smell nothing like cheese, milk that doesn’t come from a cow. “You just _buy_ all the Avengers food, all the time?”

“I am the Avengers’ wallet, kid,” says Tony. “I house them, I buy them whatever they need, I upgrade their suits and weapons, provide any special technologies my brain can cook-up. I provide most of the paycheck—but SHIELD does help. Truth be told, the risk of the job isn’t worth what it pays, so if that’s why you said yes, you might want to rethink things.”

“No offense,” says Peter, sitting at the stool by the marble countertop. He has three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in front of him made with crunchy peanut butter and organic raspberry jelly and wheat bread that is thick and brown and fragrant. His mouth waters. “But you’ve spoken like a true billionaire. Money and security? That’s worth everything.”

Tony stops what he’s doing. He puts his StarkPad down to rest in his lap, and the look on his face—Peter can’t pin it down, but it makes his shoulders hunch. Did he say something wrong?

“No offense, but you’ve spoken like a Dickensian protagonist. It’s worth everything?” Tony repeats. “Worth _dying_ for?”

Peter shrugs. “If I’m dead, who cares. It’s worth _almost_ dying for, though. Or at least—it is to me.”

Tony’s expression makes him look ten years older than he is, Atlas with the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Peter, if you need financial security—I can take care of that. Look, I can fill in a lot of the blanks when it comes to your past and how you’ve had to rough it, but here at SI we take care of our own. You don’t need to be an Avenger to eat, to have a place to sleep, to get healthcare. Jesus, you’re only twenty years old; you have your whole life ahead of you. To be honest, kid, this business doesn’t really guarantee longevity. There isn’t a retirement plan.”

Peter stares. His eyes burn but he isn’t a crier. He cried at May’s ‘funeral’, when he couldn’t afford to bury her and they’d cremated her instead—and he’d promised himself that it was the last time he’d cry for as long as he lived. So he doesn’t cry now, but he kind of wants to. In his mind he sees Ben, sees the man who killed him, feels the helplessness and the guilt all over again.

“Thanks, Mr. Stark,” he says. He pauses to clear his throat so it doesn’t sound choked. Peanut butter is sticky; that’s all. “But you don’t know everything about my past. I’m not just doing this for the money.”

The silence lays thick between them, broken only when Tony nods and says, “That’s fair. Would you do me a favor and bring me a beer while you’re over there? Bottom shelf. Behind the quinoa.”

Peter has no fucking idea what quinoa is, but the refrigerator isn’t Mary Poppin’s purse or something, so he finds the beer towards the back eventually and grabs a bottle for the older man. There aren’t many left, and Peter sees that it’s because several empty bottles are sitting in a row by Tony’s feet. The stuff looks expensive, has a foreign label in a language that Peter can’t even identify, much less read. He crosses the room to deliver the bottle to the man’s waiting hand.

Tony goes to drink it and bumps the cap against his lip. Peter snorts.

“Cut me some slack,” Tony says around a smile. “I haven’t slept since your little nighttime creepy crawly act on my building. This takes a bottle opener anyway—no, no, I’ll get it, you just sit and eat, you’ve done enough for me—”

Peter takes the bottle and pops the cap with his bare hands. All the beer he’s ever seen were cheap screw-off tops, or he would have rummaged through the drawers for a bottle opener for the man earlier. It isn’t until he’s handing the bottle back and sees Tony’s wide-eyed expression that he realizes not everybody can pop a bottle cap with their thumb. 

“You weren’t kidding about how strong you are,” Tony says.

Peter just shakes his head, slow.

Tony points to the sandwiches on the counter. “I was just about to order in Chinese. What do you think? Better than PB&J?”

Mr. Stark clears the coffee table of his work and orders Chinese from a place he swears is the most authentic place in NYC. Then they spend fifteen minutes arguing about whether to start watching the Star Wars movies at the prequels or originals (because the documentary on TV is a snoozefest, which is why Tony was trying to watch it while he worked). Tony finally concedes to Peter’s persuasion, but Peter sees him smiling around the neck of his bottle as he takes a generous sip.

They put on the Phantom Menace.

“So tell me about yourself,” Tony says after the Chinese has arrived, sitting in various boxes scattered across the glass coffee table. He ordered an inordinate amount, and Peter plans to make sure that absolutely no grain of rice goes to waste, thanking the older man between bites. “I know more about your scopulae than I do you—and that’s not a weird metaphor.”

Suddenly Peter’s stomach isn’t used to being so full, and it rolls a little with nausea. He sets his plate down to let it settle.

“You made it sound like you already knew everything about me. What do you want to know?” he asks. He’s keenly aware of how painful his life has been. It sounds like a Shakespearean tragedy when he plays it out in his head: his parents’ untimely deaths, seeing his Uncle murdered (his fault, _all Peter’s fault_—), then his aunt passing away from illness. Losing the apartment. Living on the streets and in shelters and in any buildings he could scale or break into.

“Whatever you want to tell, kid,” says Tony. “It’s not an interview or an interrogation. FRI says you’re a native of Queens.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Yeah. I’m from Queens.”

“I’m sorry,” says Tony gravely.

Peter smiles. “Queens isn’t bad, really.”

“Any family?” Tony asks. He stares at the screen where Qui-gon Jinn and Obi-Wan are bickering and takes a swig from the long-necked bottle, casual as can be, like he knows the answer is heavy but they have to get it out of the way.

The smile slips from Peter’s face. He shakes his head. “I’m alone.”

“No, you aren’t,” Tony says with conviction. “You’re an Avenger now. We’re all assholes, but we watch out for each other. It really is a family of sorts. A dysfunctional family, with an aunt who’s great at murder, a centennial grandfather, and an uncle who drinks too much, but such is life, right?”

“Who are you in that scenario?” Peter laughs. Something settles in Peter’s stomach, warm, like hot chocolate after coming in from the cold. Tony is so fucking _nice_. How does this man have everything? Looks, brains, money, and _kindness_.

“Wasn’t it obvious?” Tony holds up the beer bottle. “I’m the uncle who overindulges.”

At that moment, a noise pierces the air. Peter jumps, heart hammering. “What’s that?” He asks.

“Just the bell, kid, no worries. FRI, who is it baby?”

“Captain Rogers, sir.”

Both of them go stiff in their seats. After a moment, Tony relaxes again, but Peter can’t let his guard down, not when that name makes his muscles clench in anticipation for a fight, when it makes his scalp prickle with anxiety and warning. “Let him in,” Tony says, standing. By the time Captain Rogers appears, Tony has a beer out for him.

Steve stops when he sees Peter sitting on the couch. The blond takes it all in: the movie on screen, the mostly-eaten food, the empty beer bottles on the table (which he eyes with disapproval). It must look like Peter and Tony are very familiar with each other, Peter in his pajamas, Tony in just his jeans and the wifebeater that was under his t-shirt while he worked down in the lab.

“Hey, Cap,” Tony says. He holds up the bottle. “Drink?”

“No thanks, Tony. Can I talk to you outside?” The look he gives Peter is apologetic enough. “Sorry kid, you aren’t an official Avenger yet until your induction, or I wouldn’t bother with all the secrecy.”

“It’s fine,” Peter says stiffly.

“I’ll be just a minute, Pete,” Tony says. They step outside.

-

Peter hears everything through the walls from his seat on the couch. The television plays but does nothing to disguise the raised voices from beyond the door. Peter wishes he could see their faces, but (no matter how cool it would have been) he didn’t develop x-ray vision from the spider bite. Maybe it’s for the best—maybe Peter couldn’t be held responsible for his actions otherwise.

“What’s going on between you two?” Steve asks.

“What are you talking about? We were eating Chinese and watching Star Wars.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little inappropriate?”

“I sure as hell did, but he insisted that we start with the Phantom Menace and not A New Hope—”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Are you _grooming_ him?” Steve sounds horrified at the thought, and Peter can’t assess his face to tell if he’s sincere or not. “A homeless kid _you_ found, and suddenly you’re giving him a room in your penthouse, a job, you’re spending the day with him in the lab? And now, what, you’re plying him with alcohol?”

“I am _not_ grooming Peter,” Tony says. His voice sounds firm. _Good_! Peter thinks. “He’s in there drinking a goddamn Coke. To be honest, I’m shocked that you even know the term, I didn’t think grooming officially existed in the _Stone Age_—”

“I take all the classes SHIELD requires of me to lead the team and keep people safe, even from attacks that aren’t always with fists or alien tech. Grooming has always existed; as long as there is prey, there are predators looking—”

“Peter is not _prey_, he could fucking snap me in half—!”

“But not if you make him _like_ you, is that it? Not if he thinks he _owes_ you—”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

The silence after that lasts a moment too long, and Peter shuts his eyes. Because he can hear more in that silence than he did in Tony’s exclamation—Tony is beginning to doubt himself. He’s beginning to believe the worst in himself. They’ve only known each other for forty-eight hours, but Peter already feels like he knows Tony better than the people around him: the painful vulnerability, the intense self-criticism.

“Look, if it will make everyone feel better, I’ll move his room—”

“God damn it,” Peter hisses.

“—maybe Vision wouldn’t mind rooming up here with me. I’m practically his father, or—_something_.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Steve says magnanimously.

“I bet you do, asshole,” Peter mutters.

“Is this all you came up here for?” Tony asks. “To read me the riot act over treating the kid like I’d treat any of you—if any of you _liked_ me enough to invite me to your get-togethers or to accept my offers to join me up here—”

“I had a reason. Here,” something is exchanged hands, the rustle of paper. “Fury’s background check on Queens in there. It’s very thorough and enlightening—”

“And not my business,” Tony says. “This is confidential even by SHIELD standards—do I have clearance to have this?”

“I thought there was something in there that might be important for you to know. The kid used to work for Hammer Industries.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Well, this is it. It was lovely, folks! Peter should just pack his bag now. Maybe the windows in his room open so he can slip out and scale the side of the building. For a moment he thinks about how it might feel to just let himself fall. Now that he’s tasted this bite of a better life, returning to his old ways will be even more painful. But Peter doesn’t even know if the fall would _kill_ him—

“Hammer Industries?” Tony says at length. “He definitely upgraded.”

“I want to look out for you, Tony,” Steve says.

Peter doesn’t believe a word of that.

The worst part of all is that he has to sit there on the couch and pretend like he hasn’t heard the entire conversation. How can he explain—how he’s always had a passion for tech, how he never even dreamed of being able to work at Stark Industries, so he’d shot for the moon instead of the stars, settling at Hammer Industries. Only the place had been a shitheap with a perverted boss and Peter saved up enough to cut his losses, and then _Stark Industries had accepted him_! Even working on machines in the maintenance department…it was more than Peter had ever dreamed.

But Tony doesn’t know that. The look on his face when he comes back in the room is grave.

“Hey kid,” he says. “Sorry I missed some of the movie.”

“It’s okay,” Peter lies.

Tony sits back down on the couch, as far away from Peter as he possibly can. He doesn’t take a single sip more of alcohol, and while he is friendly enough when Peter asks him a question, he doesn’t let himself be roped into conversation anymore. He stares at the television screen like he’s seeing through it, and Peter feels it slipping away—his chances at being close with Tony crumbling like sand through his fingers.

What he _decides_ to do is to say something. Anything.

What he _does_ is scoot across the couch and climb into the man’s lap, straddling the strong thighs. Tony looks at him like two separate heads have sprouted from his ears. Instinct has him pushing at Peter sharply, and it’s only Peter’s enhanced sense of balance and grip that has him twisting to avoid being pushed flat onto the glass coffee table. He lands like a cat in the slim space between the sofa and the coffee table.

“Get off of me—”

“Please let me explain—”

“Explain what?” The man swallows, heavily, staring down at where Peter kneels between his thighs. The sound is loud to Peter’s ears; he can hear it all, the pounding heart too. “Jesus Christ, you don’t need to be in my lap to have a conversation with me, do you?”

“I _did_ work for Hammer Industries,” Peter says. “But I worked maintenance for them, too. They were shit, they treated us like shit, Hammer was a creep who used to grab my ass in the hallways, and I quit before I even had another job, that’s how desperate I was to get away.”

“You heard all that?” Tony asks, eyes wide enough to show white all around the dark iris. “Fuck, kid, eavesdropping—?”

“I have enhanced senses,” Peter pleads. “I can hear everything if it’s close enough. I can hear the Avengers on the floor below us when they’ve got a movie turned up too loud, I just, I didn’t want to say anything because it’s so creepy, but I can’t help it, and, and—”

“Hey, calm down. Here, will you get up? You’re going to give me a heart attack. Come sit on the couch, we’ll talk.”

They resume their seats on opposite ends of the couch. Peter looks down at his shaking hands, clenches them tight until his knuckles go white, but it’s not just his hands: his whole body shakes. Peter has never been gifted with words, something that has only became worse after the passing of his aunt, when he had no one to talk to. If all of this—the chance to be around Tony, the penthouse, the Avengers—if it all relies on Peter talking his way into it…then he’s doomed.

Tony scrubs at his face with a weathered hand. He looks exhausted. “I’m really sorry that you heard all of that out there,” he says at length.

“None of it was true,” Peter blurts. His blood thrums when he remembers all of Steve’s words. “You aren’t grooming me. Not to mention, I’m a fucking _adult_.”

“A vulnerable one,” concedes Tony.

“So are you,” Peter says through his teeth. “Everybody is vulnerable to something. You want to pity homeless youth, go find one who is _really_ suffering. I’m _enhanced_! I can climb walls even in the rain to get somewhere safe and dry. I don’t have to worry about anyone mugging me or, or raping me, because I could just pull their arms and legs off. I’m not vulnerable. I’m just—”

“Just what,” asks Tony, motioning with a hand when the younger man’s words cut off. “Go on, kid. I’m listening to you.”

“I’m just a guy who—who is finally getting everything that he wanted,” Peter says. All the anger is sapped from his veins now, and he feels old and heavy and tired, his eyes burning traitorously until he blinks them clear and dry. “I’ve wanted to work with science since I was old enough to go to school. But I don’t have an education, I don’t have a degree. I didn’t even finish high school. Places only hire me for grunt work, but I’m good with machines. I figured maybe I could, could work my way up. To _something_. Working at Stark Industries was just a pipe dream. I never thought I’d get a chance, but my Aunt May…she used to say that I’m too pessimistic, and I should open myself up to good things, because good things will happen.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away Mr. Stark.”

“Peter—it’s okay. I wasn’t worried about you working at Hammer Industries as it was. Hammer isn’t clever enough to infiltrate my building, and even if he were? My secrets are a lot harder to steal than anyone might think. If FRIDAY had seen you doing anything suspicious, she would have notified me in a heartbeat. That’s all shit; I know that.” Tony clears his throat. “But Cap was right about one thing. I don’t want you getting ideas in your head, that you have to treat me a certain way to stay on the team and in the Tower, or that I expect any treatment like _that_.”

Peter groans. “I don’t think that. I’m not twelve. Besides, the other Avengers treat you like _shit_, and you keep them around—”

“Hey,” says Tony, raising his voice a little. “They don’t treat me like shit, so knock it off. Having you up here in the penthouse does give the wrong impression. I don’t want you or anyone else to think I’m trying to take advantage of you.”

“What—what if I want you to?” Peter asks. He dares a look at the older man; God, he’s so handsome, even looking stunned as he is. His mouth is open like he wants to say something but isn’t sure what to say, and Peter takes the chance to continue. “I know I’m young, and I’m not the best looking guy around, not even the best looking one in the Tower, but I’ve had a crush on you since like, 2008. You’re everything I’ve dreamed of, Mr. Stark, and somehow I’m here in your penthouse and we ate _Chinese_ together and I don’t want to let it go.”

“Peter—” Tony looks stricken, face pale.

“It doesn’t have to be anything serious,” Peter amends quickly. “I know you’re busy, and I’m going to be too, I guess. No pressure. You could just let me know when—when you wanted me and I’d be there for you.”

“Kid,” says Tony. “Stop. That’s not the way I work, and that’s not the way I want _you_ to work. You shouldn’t let anybody treat you like that—”

“I wouldn’t let anybody treat me like that,” Peter promises. “Just you, Mr. Stark.”

_That_ does something to the man. Tony groans, reaching up to palm at his eyes. “You don’t make it easy on me, appealing to all my seedy kinks, kid. If I’d met you ten years ago—yikes, not ten-year-old you, twenty-year-old you but, yeah, alright, you catch my drift. If I was the same man now that I was ten years ago, I wouldn’t hesitate Peter. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“Besides the spider bite, I’m really not that special,” Peter says. “But I’m okay with that. Most people _aren’t_ special.”

“That’s not true,” says Tony. “I’ve got three emails in my inbox from my head of Maintenance begging to have you back, saying that you’re a wunderkind with the machines and that the HVAC hasn’t been in such good shape since it was first installed. You’ve made quite an impression down there—and on me, too.”

“Really?” Peter asks. He can’t help but sit up straighter, buoyant butterflies in his stomach uplifting him.

“Really,” Tony confirms. “I like the way you listen, kid. The hero worship thing, too. You’ve got to know that that plays right into my ego. Fuck, Steve’s right. I’m really not a very good man.”

“I don’t care what Steve Rogers thinks,” Peter breathes. He shifts up onto his knees, edging towards the man at the other end of the couch. By the time he stops, his feet are tucked underneath him, knees touching Tony’s thighs. Peter reaches out to put a hand on his bicep, and the older man flexes instinctively. “I can hear that, you know. The way your heartbeat just picked up.”

Tony swallows. “Not something I usually have to hide.”

“You don’t have to hide anything from me,” Peter says. “Mr. Stark?”

“What, kid?”

“Would you kiss me?”

“That wouldn’t be fair to you. Because after this conversation ends, I’m going to ask you to switch rooms with Vision.”

Peter can sense the weakness in Tony’s will, and he uses it to shift himself onto the older man’s lap, back where he was when this conversation began. Only this time Tony doesn’t push him away, just leans his head back against the couch cushions and closes his eyes. Peter stares, awed. Something about him is attractive to Mr. Stark, something that has the man barely hanging on to his control. The power is a heady thing, makes his body sway forward the way it does when he’s standing on a tall building too close to the edge. This power over the man is just as great a responsibility as his spider senses, and he would never, never misuse it.

“I don’t ever want this conversation to end, then,” Peter admits, letting his fingers drift up from where they’re resting on the man’s bicep, up along the t-shirt he’s wearing and to his neck where his pulse is hammering away. Peter presses, so gently on that carotid artery, and Mr. Stark’s mouth opens, a silent sound that deafens Peter. The younger man’s cock is rapidly hardening, but he keeps his hips pulled back lest he be too tempted to grind on Tony’s abs.

“Everything ends, kid.” The rumble of Tony’s voice reverberates through Peter and makes him shiver.

Peter carefully lets his weight down—and yes, he feels a distinct bulge in the other man’s pants, hears the way that heart stutters, resumes its beating in double-time. Tony sucks in a breath through his nose and holds it until his lungs must be aching. “I’m going to kiss you now,” Peter warns.

Tony tilts his head back up until there is nowhere to look but at each other. Slowly to give the man time to pull away, Peter ducks his head in until their panting breaths are mingling between their open mouths, and Peter decides that if Tony didn’t want Peter to, he wouldn’t have his eyes closed this way, wouldn’t have let his hands grip at Peter’s thighs to pull him further down on the man’s cock.

“One kiss,” Tony says, their lips brushing. “And then you _have_ to go downstairs, Peter. So make it count.”

“I will,” Peter promises.

And he does. Their mouths are open when they meet, and Tony’s mouth feels better than Peter might have ever imagined it to be: soft and firm and eager, coming to life like a live wire beneath Peter’s less experienced lips. But what Peter lacks in experience he makes up for in exuberance, letting both hands come up to tangle in the older man’s dark hair, letting his hips rest heavy on that hard cock beneath him just to feel the way Tony’s groan makes them both vibrate. Peter reaches out blindly and uses one hand to brace himself on the back of the couch so that he can grind down on the cock beneath him.

“Jesus, kid,” Tony breaks apart to breathe.

“I won’t let you cheat me; I’m not done with my kiss,” Peter says, pulling him back, their mouths raw and red. He sucks on the clever tongue and then pulls away to feel the burn of Tony’s facial hair against his oversensitive mouth, keeping the contact (still counts as one kiss, right? If Peter never completely pulls his lips away?) until it leads him down to that pounding pulse that he can lick and suck at. When he plants his teeth there, Tony hisses, hips thrusting up reflexively to drive his hard cock into the hot cradle of Peter’s hips.

“God, I’ve wanted this forever,” Peter says, scraping his teeth against the warm skin of Tony’s neck. “How am I supposed to stop, Mr. Stark? I—I don’t think I can.”

“Peter—one of us has to—has to—_fuck,_ your mouth—!”

“If one of us has to fuck my mouth, I hope it’s _you_—”

“Christ, don’t say shit like that,” Tony gasps. “Who knew you had such a filthy fucking mouth.”

“Wait until you see what my filthy mouth can do,” Peter says, desperate fingers tugging down the collar of Tony’s t-shirt to suck a bruise onto his collarbone, and it makes the man’s hips stutter beneath him. Peter finally pulls away (this has been far more than one kiss, but he doesn’t think Tony minds much anymore) and stares at Tony’s face. His eyes are closed, lashes long and dark where they brush his cheeks. He has the loveliest mouth, full and expressive and a little swollen from the way Peter nipped at his lips.

Their mouths are drawn back together, two magnets always seeking each other out. This kiss is better, a little more experienced. It’s give and take, both of them swaying into each other like sails caught in the breeze, the lap of warm tongues like waves against a ship’s hull, their ever present arousal being driven higher and higher. Peter reaches down to slip one hand beneath Tony’s jean-clad ass and pull the man up, harder, the friction on their cocks so painfully good that he can’t help but whine in the back of his throat.

“I can’t believe a tiny thing like you is so fucking strong,” Tony says through his teeth, slipping both his hands down into the back pockets of Peter’s jeans. When he squeezes Peter’s ass, he can’t help but jump, cock spitting precum in his boxers.

“Does—does it turn you on?” Peter asks, already suspecting the answer, the dark flash of Tony’s eyes when Peter popped the bottle cap with his bare hand replaying in his mind. “Knowing how much stronger than you I am? If I, If I wanted to, I could snap you in half just like you said to Steve. But I’d never do that. Maybe I’d just hold you down so that I could climb on top of you and ride your cock just the way _I_ wanted to—”

“Fuck—kid, you keep talking like that and I’m going to blow in my pants.”

Peter’s breath catches. He slows his frantic grinding, turning them into long, deep strokes. “That’s what I want,” he whispers. “I want to see you cum, please, Mr. Stark? You make it sound like this might be my only chance. That would be a crime though, because there’s so much I want to do to you, suck your ridiculous brain out through your cock and swallow your cum and rim you and pin you flat to whatever surface we’re closest to—whatever works—and ride your cock, or, or give you mine—”

Tony’s back arches, cutting off a strangled shout. He stays that way, head back, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open in ecstasy for an endless moment, and then his hips drop back down to the couch as he groans, burying his face in Peter’s neck, content to let Peter hump him through his orgasm until he is shaking, oversensitive, heart pounding far too fast for a man of his age and cardiac history. It’s all the most sexual, incredible experience of Peter’s short life, and he knows that it’s not the end. It can’t be.

Even though his cock aches, balls protesting the lack of orgasm, Peter gently shifts himself off the man’s lap, wiping the dark hair from Tony’s forehead, slick with just the beginning of sweat. He places a last tender kiss on the man’s cheek, just above his trimmed facial hair.

“I’ll get my bag,” Peter whispers. “Just give me five minutes.”

Then he stands and disappears into his room, leaving behind the billionaire.

-

Peter stands in what was once Vision’s room feeling bereft. Apparently the man(? cyborg? Peter isn’t sure of what to call him) didn’t care much for decoration, because the room looks as the room upstairs did with all the impersonal warmth of a fancy hotel room. The bed is large and comfortable, sheets clean. The bathroom is black marble, shining and sleek. He should be comfortable here. There’s nothing very different—

—except for the company.

Steve Rogers knocks and then looms in the doorway, leaning against the frame. His face is pleasant enough, a little pitying maybe, but Peter is willing to admit that his own feelings on the man might be clouding his perception. “Hey, Peter. I wanted to see how you were settling in.”

“Oh, hi, Captain,” Peter says. It’s easy to slip on a naïve persona, all guileless wide eyes and timid cracking voice. He just plays up all the characteristics he naturally has, though they all seem to melt away when this man is near. “Would you—would you come in, actually? I have some questions.”

“Sure—”

And when the door closes behind him, Peter is there, a hand flat against it so that try as he might, Steve can’t open it. Any pleasantry saps itself from both of their faces until they regard each other with trepidation (from Steve) and undisguised dislike (from Peter).

“I heard everything you said upstairs when you were talking to Tony,” Peter says through his teeth. He barely recognizes his voice, the darkness in it, the disgust. It feels like possession, like his own anger is a demon inhabiting his body and he’s just along for the ride, staring through the holes of his eyes like they are far away windows. “Do not ever, _ever_ mistake me for prey. I might be in the web along with the flies, but that’s because I am the spider. Tell me: what do you know about spiders?”

“Not much,” Steve admits. He doesn’t look scared, though the tense stance says more than his expressionless face; maybe he isn’t afraid, but he isn’t underestimating Peter either and that’s _good_. Peter can appreciate that.

“I read all the books in the New York City Public Library about them during the summer I turned fifteen. Did you know that jumping spiders can jump almost 40 times their own length? They can hold up to 150 times their own body weight, too. For their size, they are one of the strongest, fastest animals in the world. Maybe those statistics don’t carry over to me; maybe the mass makes things different, maybe since I don’t have an exoskeleton, maybe since I only have four legs and not eight—but maybe they _do _reflect my abilities. And maybe I _am_ that strong. And _I don’t want you to forget it_.”

“Are you threatening me Peter?” Steve asks solemnly.

“No,” Peter says. “I’m defending myself, and I’m defending Tony. Remember that.”

Steve looks at him, serious. “I will. Is that all, kid?”

If he thought that he’d find any satisfaction in threatening Steve Rogers, he was wrong. All he feels after the door closes is empty, angry, a pot with the lid on tight even though the pressure builds and builds, desperate to boil over. There’s no relief to be found; his fury is so impotent. Nothing he can do would change Tony’s mind (and he doesn’t want to change Tony’s mind, he wants Tony’s mind to change on its own).

For the first time, he feels scared of himself.

But all he can do is persist, exist, like a weed coming up through the crack of the Avengers’ concrete.

Peter undresses and lays in the comfortable bed, staring up at the darkness of the ceiling. For a while he tosses and turns (can a bed be too comfortable? Too soft and yielding to his every curve? Talk about first-world problems), but then he sits up in the dark.

On the floor above him, Mr. Stark has started playing music. Loud. _Loud enough for Peter to hear_.

He takes one of the fluffy pillows and tucks it between his arms where (ideally) another body would rest. Closing his eyes, he falls asleep to the sounds of Led Zeppelin’s greatest hits. He dreams of rain on the windows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and criticism gives me life, I love hearing everyone's reactions and thoughts, you're all so lit  
find me on tumblr @ cagestark


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> meh  
In this chapter Tony relives some trauma that is very reminiscent of the events in Civil War. Keep in mind that this is an Alternate Universe, and that it differs from canon in many ways, despite certain similarities.

Training goes well.

Peter meets Black Widow (and she is even more beautiful in person, so beautiful that it’s eerie). She offers him her hand and he shakes it, firm and polite. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Steve staring at their hands as they clasp together, but if he’s expecting Peter to use his strength on an unenhanced human—not to mention one who has done nothing wrong—he’s got another thing coming.

Just to rub it in, Peter puts on his best respectful veneer when he says: “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“_Ma’am_! Do you hear that, Steve?” The man mutters an _I hear it_ under his breath. “Call me Natasha. They’re calling _you_ Spider-Man, you know that? I guess that makes us of a similar Kingdom and Class.”

Peter feels warmth in his gut, the pleased, tingly feeling of belonging. He has a name like Black Widow or Hawkeye or Iron Man. Fuck. May would tease him without end for that, in between her proud smiles and glistening eyes. “That’s _so_ cool,” Peter says, sounding as star-struck as he feels. “We’re like, the spider subdivision of the Avengers or something. Ancestral Arachnids.”

“Natasha is going to be overseeing your training,” Steve says. He shows no signs of Peter’s unpleasantness earlier in the week, but something about the way those blue eyes track his every movement keeps Peter from letting the man stand at his unprotected back. “She’s one of the best in the field when it comes to hand to hand combat. You more than likely already have the instincts you need if you’re enhanced, so she’s just going to help you learn how to listen to those instincts and hone them, plus run you through our procedures in the field. Sound good?”

It does sound good.

“Do you want to spar, _Captain_?” Peter asks while Natasha changes into work-out clothes. This time, the other man doesn’t fall for his wide, guileless eyes and the gentle, pubescent sounding voice. He assesses Peter with flat, knowing eyes.

Steve shakes his head. “Busy today, kid. Some other time.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” Peter promises, flexing the fingers he’d used to crush the other man’s hand. He cracks the joints swiftly.

Natasha isn’t enhanced, so he is careful not to hurt her while they spar, but her depth of knowledge seems endless. She knows techniques from martial arts subdivisions that Peter can’t even pronounce, and Peter watches her every move, soaking up the knowledge like a sponge. He loves learning. He loves being useful. He loves the ache in his body after a workout. He loves having a purpose.

“How often does Mr. Stark train?” Peter asks during a water break.

Hawkeye (_Clint_, as he introduces himself) and Falcon (_Sam_) are wrapping their knuckles by the water cooler and overhear him ask. Clint snorts. “Tony? He doesn’t. At least, not with us.”

“He comes to the mandatory team exercises every other week. We’d kick him out of those, too, except that it’d be dangerous for us in the field,” Sam admits. “You’ll find that Tony is kind of like the third wheel on our dates with the bad guys, Pete. He tags along or shows up even when we ask him not to. Sometimes he comes in handy, sometimes he gets in the way.”

“But he pays for the tech and the Tower, so try not to piss him off or we’ll all end up out on the streets,” Clint adds. He and Sam touch knuckles.

Peter says nothing—stunned. He might have guessed that with a team leader like Steve, the rest of the team would have the same viewpoints but it’s still…disappointing. The Avengers were his heroes in his teen years, but they’re turning out to just be normal people. Shitty ones, at that. Peter feels another part of his illusioned childhood slip through his fingers.

He trashes it, along with his empty water cup.

“Peter?” Natasha asks. He can tell by the look on her face that she senses his tense mood, her eyes flickering between him and the two older men preparing to spar behind him. “You want to run through things one more time before we call it quits for today?”

“Actually, I’m feeling a little tense in my shoulders,” Peter lies, ignoring the guilt that gnaws at his stomach. He rubs at one trap for effect. “I think I’m going to go stretch and shower and rest—don’t want to pull a muscle, you know.”

“Right,” she says. “Well let me know if you aren’t feeling up to doing more in the morning. You have weeks before you’ll be cleared for fieldwork, so there’s no rush. Here, give me your Starkphone and I’ll program my number into it.”

“I don’t have a Starkphone,” Peter says. He’s never even had a smartphone, much less a STARKphone, the specs of which can’t be compared to anything Apple and Samsung are cooking up in their wildest dreams. They aren’t even mass produced considering their at-cost price is three grand. Peter has two dollars in change in the pocket of his backpack, but that’s it (and it’s mostly pennies). “But if you just tell it to me, I can memorize your number and put it in my track phone when I get upstairs.”

Natasha’s brows draw together. “Tony must be slacking if you don’t have one. He gives every new Avenger the latest model to make sure we’re up to date on the newest tech and able to communicate efficiently—something about how iPhones are the equivalent of chiseling on stone or sending smoke signals. I’ll talk to Tony for you.”

“Mr. Stark doesn’t need to make me a phone,” Peter insists. “I have one upstairs that works just fine. Maybe when I start getting paid, I can save up and get one of my own—”

“You don’t have to save up to get Stark tech,” she says, smiling. “It’s free. That’s the perk of having Tony on the team.”

_The_ perk, she says, like Tony’s money is the only thing he has going for him.

“I don’t want it,” Peter says. He puts space between them, jabbing the button for the elevator with more force than necessary. When the doors open to finally take him away from this gym with these people, it feels like he’s watching the pearly gates open for the way relief fills him. “But thanks anyway. I guess I should be thanking Mr. Stark, though, right?”

The doors close on her confused face.

Thirty hours later, Peter is climbing the walls. Figuratively, this time. He feels even less inclined to leave his room now than he had before. He’s already become something of a nocturnal recluse, exiting the kitchen only in the dead of night when he can hear the sounds of the other Avengers sleeping around him. He’s met some of the others who come and go and some who live on the floor: Thor, Wanda, Dr. Stephen Strange, Bruce Banner. There are hushed mentions of another member, Bucky, but Peter never sees him. What hurts most is Tony’s glaring absence. Ever since Peter got the man off, he hasn’t seen a trace of him. Anxiety blooms in his chest like water expanding upon freezing, icy barbs that make it hard to take a full breath. What if Tony is mad at him? What if Peter misinterpreted things between them? What if the dynamic has changed, and now he’s nothing to Mr. Stark but yesterday’s news?

It wouldn’t be the first time something like that had happened to him.

“Peter?” the disembodied voice with the exaggerated Irish lilt makes him jump.

He clears his throat, out of sorts as it is from disuse. “Yes, Ms. FRIDAY?”

“It’s Mr. Stark, Peter. He wants to know if you’re available to meet him in the lab.”

Peter jams his feet into his shoes without bothering to put on socks. 

Tony blinks in surprise at how quickly Peter arrives through the glass door of his lab, eyes scanning up and down Peter’s figure before settling on his face and giving a warm smile. Peter takes the time to assess the older man as well (fair is fair!). Tony looks exhausted, eyes shadowed, hair a mess. He’s wearing the same clothes he was the last time Peter saw him, but it’s been so many days, surely he’s just rewashed and decided to wear the clothes again—right?

It’s the first time they’ve seen each other since Peter moved rooms, since the night he ground on the man’s lap until Mr. Stark came in his pants. Just the memory of it (which Peter has revisited several times in his bed, in his shower) makes him flush with phantom arousal. At least he can blame that on the speed he used to get here.

Maybe it should be awkward, but it isn’t. Not on Peter’s end, at least.

Tony points to the lab table closest to the door where a large box rests. “I am bearing a gift for you, spider-boy.”

“Spider-Man,” Peter amends, already smiling. The difference is amazing and something he didn’t necessarily notice until he saw the man again, until the apathetic listlessness was washed from his skin leaving him feeling refreshed and exuberant. Peter _missed_ him. He tip-toes towards the table, fingers hesitating above the ominous box. “You didn’t need to get me anything, Mr. Stark.”

“I didn’t—I _made_ you something. Big difference. Go ahead, open it.”

With trepidation, Peter opens the box. There is a large mass of dark fabric inside and a smaller, sleek box sitting on top.

“Ta-Da!” Tony says. “Two gifts! I lied. I’m such a liar—”

Tony sways where he stands, like he’s suddenly lost his balance. Peter nearly upends a lab table between them trying to get to the man, watching as he white knuckles the nearest surface to ease himself down into the chair he’d abandoned. The heart in his chest pounds, skipping beats, a horror movie soundtrack that Peter is privy to, but Tony just waves the younger man’s concern away. “_Gifts_. Don’t worry about me, the look on your face will heal me of all my ailments, clear my skin, water my crops, all the things the kids say these days.”

“Your skin is already clear,” Peter mutters, frowning as he returns to the box and glances in the open lid. His stomach twists as he removes the smaller box. When he opens it, there is the sleekest, thinnest phone starring back at him, nestled in plastic that hugs its smooth curves, midnight blue. When he gingerly takes it from the box and turns it over, he sees the Stark Industries logo on the back and all the breath gets trapped in his lungs. “Mr. Stark—I—”

“I’m going to be honest, your expression _isn’t_ healing me right now. What’s the matter kid? You wanted a different color?”

“I didn’t want one at all—” The look on Tony’s face is some mix between shock and disappointment. “No! I just meant, I mean, of course I want one Mr. Stark, these are the best phones in the world, I’m not just saying that, but I didn’t want you to go through the trouble. I know that these aren’t mass produced.”

“They aren’t,” Tony admits. “I made that one personally last night. Just for you, Pete. One of a kind. Like its owner.”

Peter’s face flushes. “I’ll save up my money and pay you back as soon as I can.”

“Don’t worry about it. Get out the next present. Come on, I want you to put it on and make sure it fits.”

Somehow Peter is even more nervous—did Tony buy him _clothes_? He gets an image in his head of him walking around the penthouse wearing one of Tony’s band-shirts. Surely it would swim on Peter’s thin, petite frame. If he wore nothing underneath it, it’d be perfect access for Tony to come up behind him while Peter is at the counter in the kitchen (making coffee, cooking pop-tarts, who cares), ruck up the hem, and grind his erection against Peter’s bare ass.

Trying to slow his breathing, Peter hopes that his thoughts aren’t written clear as day on his face. When he pulls it from the box, he finds himself holding a jumpsuit made of a material that feels unlike anything he’s touched before: hard like metal, but flexible like fabric. It’s of a blue so dark that it’s nearly black. To match his phone maybe, he thinks. “What is this?” Peter asks. “Pajamas?”

“I’m sorry—_pajamas_? Jesus, kid, you’re, fuck. You’re really busting my balls today. It’s your suit! Well, the prototype. My struggles right now are just finding a material that’s strong enough to deflect bullets but flexible enough for you to do your creepy-crawly gimmick. Go and try it on, I want you to tell me if it fits.”

Peter sheds his shirt right away only to catch the stricken look on Tony’s face. “I meant go in the bathroom and change, Chippendale, but if—yeah, okay, that works, I’ll just—” he turns around to face the opposite direction. Peter rolls his eyes. His abs might be the one thing he has going for him, and Mr. Stark refuses to look at them now. Great.

He strips to his boxers and begins to tug on the suit, but a problem announces itself immediately. “Mr. Stark, this doesn’t have holes for my hands and feet. I need skin to surface contact for the scopulae to work.”

Tony remains looking resolutely away. “Not anymore. Thanks to all the in-depth scans FRIDAY completed last time you were here, I’ve found a way to recreate your scopulae mechanically. The sensors in the fingers and feet of your suit (and it should fit like a _glove_, Peter) will activate only when you activate your spider-touch. The suit is just expensive interfacing that will keep you from getting your fingers sawn off or developing frost bite. Are you in it yet? Come on, kid, the anticipation is killing me.”

Peter flexes around to zip himself up and yeah, the suit fits like a glove. The tightest glove he’s ever worn. One that was made for the contours of his body, the flatness of his abs, the bulge of his biceps. “It’s on. You can look.”

Tony spins around on the stool. He eyes Peter from the collar down, and the younger man grows flush, feeling that gaze on him as easily as he’d feel fingers reaching out to caress him. But when Tony fires off a series of technical questions about the fit, it becomes clear that he isn’t checking Peter out. He’s checking out the _suit_. Which kind of makes Peter even more crazy about him, if such a thing is possible.

“I’ve already tested the things it can and can’t do: it can’t be cut, it can’t be pierced or penetrated. Can’t be burned, though some hazardous materials are corrosive enough to it with long term exposure, so try not to take any lengthy dips in inconveniently placed vats of acids. But I have not yet seen what _you_ can do in it. Let’s take it for a test run, huh kid?”

Tony takes him to the training room, which is empty on a Sunday. The ceilings are high—very high, and Peter scales them with ease. It feels strange at first, not feeling his bare skin on the plaster of the walls and the textured ceiling, but the suit fits so close to him that it’s easy to forget it isn’t his skin. There isn’t any difference in grip that Peter can detect, but he tests it anyway, hanging precariously by one hand.

“Oh no, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, placing the back of his free hand against his forehead like a true damsel in distress. He lets his legs kick a little in the air. “Please, save me!”

“I’m watching you use four fingers and a thumb to stick to a glass window twenty feet off the ground,” Tony calls. “I don’t think you need any saving. Still—this is not an invitation to be scaling my building, understand?”

“I don’t know, it feels pretty inviting to me!”

“Peter Parker—no death-defying circus acts, do you hear me?”

“No promises!”

Tony shakes his head. Peter thinks that he maybe looks a little fond. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

“Dinner plans?” Tony asks as they reenter the lab. He turns away so Peter can strip off the suit, though the younger man rolls his eyes. “I was thinking about ordering in like I always do. I’m feeling like soup though, need something light on my stomach. FRI, baby, what do you recommend?”

“After forty hours of no other sustenance, I’d not recommend anything spicy, high in fiber, or fried.”

“So you’d not recommend anything _good_, I get it—"

“Forty hours?” Peter asks, nearly tangling himself up in his haste to pull his shirt on over his head. He can’t see Tony’s expression, but his shoulders are hunched, one elbow resting on the table. Even from behind, he looks exhausted. “You can’t do that, Mr. Stark. You need to take breaks.”

“This is my break, kid. FRI, order me some vegetable soup from that vegan place down the street, and get Peter—Pete, what do you want? Does soup sound okay? What am I kidding, you’re enhanced, you need more than _that_. FRIDAY, find Peter something to eat that’s good for him, I don’t know, I’m hardly role-model material.”

“Soup is fine, Ms. FRIDAY,” Peter insists before the AI can purchase him an entire barbecued pig or something equally ridiculous. If she is anything like her creator, she must have a tendency to go overboard. Out to sea. Past the line of the horizon. “I don’t need anything special. Just a lot of it, if that’s okay.”

They take the soup up in Tony’s penthouse, and it’s the happiest Peter’s felt since being moved down to the Avengers’ communal floor. It feels like nothing has changed when Tony kicks up his socked feet onto the coffee table, takes the soup bowl into his hands and drinks the broth from it. He leaves all the carrots in the bottom, and it should be dorky that Peter finds something like that so fucking endearing.

“How’s it been, living with other superheroes?” Tony asks him, sipping spring water. “Everything you dreamed it would be?”

Peter shrugs, swirling his spoon around his own bowl.

“_Not_ everything you dreamed?” Tony amends.

“I don’t want to badmouth my teammates,” Peter mutters. “We just obviously have different opinions about some important things. But that’s normal right? You put a half dozen people in the same apartment and of course they aren’t always going to agree.”

Tony hums. “You hate how Barton puts the coffee grinds right into the garbage disposal, don’t you? I’ve told him time and time again—”

Peter snorts. “No, that’s not it. It’s…well. It’s you.”

Tony frowns now. His whole demeaner changes, shrinks. With forced humor, he asks: “Me? What’d I do this time?”

“Nothing,” Peter hurries to assure. His face flushes, he wants to press his palms against his burning cheeks, but he doesn’t want to call attention to it. “I guess that’s just where the other Avengers and I disagree. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want to cause trouble or to make you feel bad, I just—I wish they treated you better. I wish they saw what an amazing person you are. You know?”

“Maybe you’re just seeing me with rose-tinted glasses, kid,” Tony says, smiling sadly.

“I just see the way you treat me,” Peter admits. “People were always pretending I wasn’t there. When I was sleeping rough, they’d just walk by, turn their heads so we didn’t have to look at each other. So they didn’t have to look at _me_, I guess. Even working here, not a lot of people pay attention to the Maintenance Department. We’re supposed to be…invisible. You treat me like I’m a human being, though. Like you see me.”

“You _are_ a human being,” says Tony. “And I do see you. I don’t know how anyone could miss you, kid.”

God. Maybe that’s just basic human decency, but Peter hasn’t been shown such a thing in so long that it makes his heart clench, makes his stomach churn and palms go sweaty. He’s filled with such longing that his insides twist. More and more lately, he feels like if he doesn’t have this older man for himself, it might kill him, a desire so keen that it hurts.

“Woah there,” says Tony, reaching out quickly to sit his bowl down on the table. “Don’t give me that look. That look is liable to get us into trouble.”

“What look?” Peter asks, breathily, letting his eyes drag down the man’s body. He licks his lips reflexively—what, they’re dry, okay?

“_That_ look!” Tony says, pointing. “That one right there, the one that says you’re about to eat me whole.”

“Spiders _are_ mostly carnivorous,” Peter says.

Tony laughs, scrubbing at his face with one hand. “Peter, I’m really not known for my self-control—actually I’m sort of famously known for my lack of self-control. Have some mercy on an old man.”

“Who needs self-control,” Peter grumbles. All the things that embarrass him—the kind words, the affectionate touches—sex isn’t really one of them. Peter hasn’t been a virgin in years, and it’s been too long since he had a partner as good as he knows Mr. Stark will be. A partner as incredible as Mr. Stark is. “Besides, I’m twenty years old, I’m not supposed to have good self-control either.”

“How old is that is spider years? Because I think you’ll probably still come out more mature than I am.”

“Spiders aren’t _dogs_, Mr. Stark—” Peter finds himself inching closer to the man. His skin is so sensitive that he can feel the heat thrown off by Tony’s body. It’s impossible not to know how the older man is affected, not when his heart stutters, his pupils bloom. “You know, I don’t think that soup was enough. Maybe I need something else to fill me up.”

“I’ve heard a lot of dirty talk in my time, kid,” Tony says. Though his voice is unchanged, his breathing is haggard. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

“That sounds like permission if I’ve ever heard it,” Peter breathes. In one swift move, he straddles the man’s thigh until it rests between his own, arching his back so that his cock rubs against that muscled leg.

Tony stops breathing. His eyes are half-lidded, the whiskey color turned deeper and darker. He takes several long, slow breaths to calm himself, but Peter doesn’t want that. He wants to see this composed man become the _opposite_ of calm. He slips down off of his perch on the man’s lap and between the parted knees.

“Kid,” Tony says, catching his wrist when it moves towards the man’s belt buckle. “Don’t.”

“Why not?” Peter asks.

“I’m exhausted,” the man says, and as he says it, Peter can _see_ it. Between his legs, the man isn’t even hard. He reaches out with one trembling hand and pets at Peter’s hair, traces the shell of his ear with his thumb until Peter shivers, smiling. “I’ve been awake for, FRIDAY—”

“Fifty-one hours, boss.”

Tony points up to the ceiling. “What she said. I don’t think I could get hard even if I tried right now.”

Peter lets his head rest on the man’s thigh, watching carefully to make sure that Tony is okay with the intimacy. Judging by the soft smile, the way his hand comes down to pet at Peter’s curls, Tony’s okay with it. Shuddering at the stimulation on his scalp, Peter wills away the erection between his legs. Now isn’t the time. “Is it normal for you to spend so much time in the lab?”

“Nothing about me is normal, kid.”

“You know what I mean.”

Tony hums. “Sometimes when I have a project deadline, or when something’s caught my interest. After Natasha reminded me that I hadn’t made your phone yet—”

“Natasha?” Peter’s head lifts from the muscular thigh. He grits his teeth, officially adding her to the list of people he can’t trust with Tony’s wellbeing. “I told her not to bother you. It’s not your job to manufacture a phone for me; you’ve already done so much.”

“Just a match on the fire of things I’d do for you, kid,” Tony says. He sounds half asleep, and the sight of the shadows under his eyes reminds Peter that their positions are very backwards. Tony’s eyes blink open when Peter moves away, wide and bloodshot, looking ready to apologize though he’d done nothing wrong.

Peter sits at the opposite end of the couch and pats his lap. “Put your head here.”

“There?” Tony asks, pointing. “What for?”

“Think: why would I put _my_ head in _your_ lap?”

“To suck me off—?”

Peter sucks in breath to laugh and chokes instead, coughing until he’s red in the face. “Save that thought for another time. Just lay down.”

Tony does, gingerly. He lays flat on his back, one of Peter’s thighs cushioning the arch of his neck. It gifts Peter with the most delicious vantage point of the man’s face, even if he looks a little trepidatious. With all the tenderness he has in him, Peter reaches out to stroke the dark hairs off of the man’s forehead. Immediately, Tony’s eyes flutter and he inhales. The billionaire has noble features, even as delicately lined with age as they are. With his nails, Peter softly scratches at the man’s temples where gray hair is sprouting.

“God,” Tony mutters. “That feels good. Never stop.”

“Quit,” Peter says, smiling. “You’re going to make me hard.”

Eyes shut, Tony smiles, baring the prettiest, white teeth. God, there’s nothing about him that Peter would change. Nothing about him that is less than perfect—except for maybe the way he sees himself. How could someone so intelligent be so off base in their self-perception? “Should I talk about something that will turn you off instead?”

“Thanks, but no. You can go to sleep if you want to. You sound really tired.”

“I _am_ really tired,” Tony concedes. His voice is soft and just a little slower than normal. Slurred, drunk with exhaustion. “Shouldn’t sleep though.”

“Why not?”

“I have nightmares,” Tony breathes. Underneath his eyelids, Peter can see his eyes flickering, like he’s watching his nightmares playing out in his mind. The man shivers—honest to God _shivers_, and Peter’s own senses take notice. Something is upsetting Tony, the goosebumps on his arms say, the anxious twisting of his stomach. Something is scaring him. Help. Protect. “Night terrors, according to FRIDAY. I get violent.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Peter says. Tony’s eyes slit open to stare at him, as if assessing the truth of his statement. “I could snap you in half, remember? I, I could snap _Captain America_ in half, for what it’s worth—”

And the way Tony’s eyes open, shoulders stiffening where they’re pressed against Peter’s thighs, suddenly he knows. He _knows_ that whatever is hurting Mr. Stark goes back to Steve Rogers. Peter strokes through the dark hair, rubbing at one temple with a tender thumb, but Tony’s eyes don’t close again. They stare at the ceiling above them, seeing through it like it isn’t there. Peter feels both hot and cold all over, inside his body and yet far away, watching through the windows of his eyes.

“Did he hurt you?” Peter asks. His mouth feels numb.

“It was my fault,” Tony says, shivering. “There was an altercation, and I made him choose between me or his closest friend. I can’t fault him for not choosing—for _choosing_ Barnes. Some skeletons came out of the closet; I guess Barnes was responsible for my parents’ death—”

“_Excuse me?_”

“—it’s a long story,” Tony says. His eyes slip shut. “He killed them, but he was brainwashed so, so it doesn’t really count, I guess, does it? That’s what everyone says, what they keep telling me—that he was just as blameless as a gun might have been, he was just a weapon—”

“Tony. Hey. Just take some deep breaths—”

“There was a fight. Me versus them,” Tony continues. Peter’s heart sinks to think of this fragile, unenhanced man having to hold his own against two enhanced super soldiers. The suit had them on more equal footing, but two against one was never fair. Ever. “I was hurt. Very badly.”

Tony takes one of Peter’s hands, spreads open the fingers that melt under his touch. He presses it to the center of his chest and the young man can hardly believe what he’s feeling, isn’t even sure _what_ he’s feeling. There’s a depression in Tony’s chest, centered on his sternum, a hollowness in the shape of a perfect circle. It’s right above his _heart_.

“What is that?” Peter asks, placing his palm there.

“After my stint in a cave in Afghanistan, I came home with an electromagnetic pacemaker that was keeping me alive and powering the Iron Man suits. During the fight, Steve destroyed it. The suit, it—it felt like a coffin. Hours went by before I was found. I don’t know what was worse: the sound the shield made when it came down on my heart or laying there with the thought of someone peeling open my suit someday and finding my skeleton.”

“Jesus,” Peter mutters.

And they _live_ here. Steve is one floor down from them, probably doing something domestic like making dinner or watching television or doing crunches in his room. How can he show his face here, when he nearly took Tony’s life from him? How can the other Avengers let him? And Barnes—Peter isn’t even prepared to deal with how fucked up Tony having to house his own parents’ murderer is. Because it’s beyond fucked.

Tony rolls onto his side, face toward Peter. It might be arousing under different circumstances, but now it makes Peter curl up over him, removing his palm from the hollow chest and reaching for Tony’s hand. The palm is clammy, but Peter could care less. He squeezes, firm but gentle, and continues to card his fingers through Tony’s hair.

“’m so sorry,” Peter says lowly.

Tony’s eyes are closed, but he still murmurs back, “It’s no big deal. We’ve all made up, now, even Barnes and me. But sometimes—”

“—sometimes you’re still scared.”

Tony brow furrows just the slightest, lines that Peter wants to reach out and smooth away. “No,” he mumbles, more than half asleep now. “No, Stark men don’t get scared…made of iron...”

Peter says nothing. He sits there, stroking the man’s hair until his breathing evens out and his mouth goes slack, and even then Peter can’t bring himself to move. When he speaks, it is quiet, more to himself than to Tony. “You have nothing to be afraid of anymore. I will never let anything happen to you Mr. Stark. You have my word. _I will protect you_.”

Softly as he can, he maneuvers himself out from underneath the man’s head. There’s an afghan on the back of one armchair (though not the kind Peter’s used to, not the kind his grandmother might have made considering this one feels so soft and rich and new), and he lays it across the man. Oh, if only Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone and Time magazine could see him now, the soft and relaxed expression, the gently parted mouth.

Quiet as a <strike>spider</strike> mouse, Peter cleans up their mess from dinner so that Tony won’t have to wake up to it. After everything is back where it should be, Peter sits heavily in the armchair by the couch, a silent vigilant.

Tonight, Peter is a dreamcatcher.

When he finally leaves the penthouse and heads back to his own room, the sun is just starting to hint at rising. His own eyes are heavy, and his shoulders bowed with troubles—his own and Tony’s. All of it evaporates when he sees a figure sitting at the window watching the sunrise, a cup of coffee in his hand and the goddamn newspaper beside him, truly a man out of time.

Steve looks at him with all the prim disapproval of an old biddy, as if Peter was walking in with high heels in his hand and no panties on underneath a party dress. They stare at each other in silence for a long moment while the fury builds under Peter’s skin.

“Looking for a fight?” Peter asks, his hands shaking. A normal human might miss it, but Steve doesn’t.

“No,” Steve says. “I’m not going to fight you, Peter.”

“You will. _Soon_.”

“Not every disagreement has to come to violence.” The magnanimous attitude makes Peter see red, but then he wonders the sound Captain America’s shield makes when it strikes metal and feels cold all over.

“That’s real rich,” Peter mutters. He lifts a hand and flips him off. Steve’s lips get thin—but there’s no satisfaction in it. Giving Captain America the bird is small beans compared to the trauma Tony experienced at the man’s hands.

Peter doesn’t bother looking back.

In the privacy of his room, Peter takes the time to look through his new Starkphone. He discovers that he already has one contact: Tony. Peter rolls over to press his face flat into the mattress and keep from making any embarrassing noises (or at least to keep from making them loud enough for Steve to hear in the main room). His life has taken the strangest detour, and he hopes that whatever the destination may be that it takes ages to get there. He’s enjoying himself far too much. Take the scenic route, fate. Thanks.

Even though Tony is asleep, Peter can’t help but send a quick message and hope that FRIDAY screens his texts and will keep it from waking the exhausted man.

**Thanks again for the phone, Mr. Stark. It’s awesome. **

He sits his phone aside on the table, telling himself that he won’t check it until the morning.

Peter wakes with the phone pressed flat between his cheek and the pillow, the vibration of an incoming text making his skull buzz. Squinting at the phone, he sees that it’s a nine in the morning, and Tony has just replied to his message.

**We’re very even, kid. x**

Falling back to sleep takes forever, but the smile that threatens to split his face is worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> constructive criticism very, very welcome.  
come talk on tumblr @ cagestark


	5. Chapter 5

-

The weeks before Peter’s official induction are spent training. Attempts to goad Steve into a fight are unfruitful—the man avoids him at all costs. Instead, Peter pushes himself to his limits in a way he was never able to when he didn’t have five thousand calories a day to eat at his disposal. The weight he puts on is almost entirely muscle, and he notices that Tony seems appreciative too. Days that aren’t spent training until his muscles quiver are spent with the man in his lab.

And a few incredible evenings are spent quivering in other ways.

“I’m a bad man,” Tony murmurs under his breath the first night they give in again. Peter has his nose buried in the juncture of Tony’s neck, breathing in the scent of expensive body wash. When his hands drift up to palm at Peter’s hips, Peter snags both of the wrists and holds them in one hand, tightening his fingers, careful (always so careful) not to hurt the man.

“You got off last time,” Peter says, pushing Tony’s wrists to the side. He grinds down obscenely, shivering when Tony moans. “I think it’s my turn.”

“That seems only polite,” Tony says, voice strained. Sometimes, Peter’s leg that rests between Tony’s brushes against his cock, and Tony inhales sharply every time, though he doesn’t beg, doesn’t thrust his hips. He seems content to watch Peter take his pleasure. “I’m all about equality; I love reciprocity. Jesus Christ, Peter, look at you.”

“Yes,” Peter pants. The friction on his cock burns in the best way. He’s been jerking off twice a day on days when Ton is busy, but nothing beats this, nothing beats the way Tony’s eyes on him makes him feel drunk, head screwed on loose. “Look at me. Watch me. God, Mr. Stark, thought my dick was going to fall off I’ve been masturbating so much, but this is _so_ much better.”

Tony groans, nudging his leg up gently. Peter keens, shivering with pleasure. He chases his orgasm, rutting into oblivion, muscles shaking with how tightly he’s got his free hand clenched on the back of the couch, using it to keep his balance. There’s no chance he’ll last long—but that just means he’ll be able to focus on Tony sooner rather than later. “Can’t look anywhere else, kid. You’re it.”

“I’m gonna cum,” Peter gasps. He can feel it building low in his gut and in his balls, a coil tightening, begging for release. This orgasm will be better, more satisfying than the ones he’s had all week—he can just tell. He buries his face in Tony’s neck to press a sweet kiss to the hammering pulse. “Thank you, thank you—”

“Cum for me,” Tony says lowly. “That’s how you can thank me. Come on—head up, let me look at you—”

Peter whines, pulling his face from the warm, fragrant place he had tucked it. He loses the ability to speak, chasing that peak that’s just a hairsbreadth away. He can feel his cock lengthening, spitting precum, just a few more moments, just a few more thrusts—

—when he cums, his groan is loud enough that someone in the hall could have overheard it. His head tips back, baring his throat that Tony leans forward to mouth at, facial hair scraping the sensitive skin. The pain just sends Peter higher, cock spurting where it’s trapped against him in his boxers and tight pants, and he gives several more jerking thrusts, riding out the feeling of total, blissful release. “God,” he whispers. “God, that was good.”

“Looked good,” Tony says, voice deep and rough.

“Quit,” Peter says, grinning. He scoots off the man’s lap and in between his spread thighs, reaching for the belt buckle. He gets sidetracked, palming at the large bulge in the man’s pants. They haven’t gone any further than making out and heavy petting (Tony’s insistence that they take it slow) but Peter feels like if he doesn’t get his mouth on the man’s cock, it might kill him. Leaning forward, he licks a hot stripe over the clothed erection, tasting the rough denim, feeling the cock jump under his mouth. Tony’s breaths go shaky, his hands in fists at his sides.

“Is this okay?” Peter asks. Without much pressure, he opens his mouth wide and playfully bites at the bulge.

“Fuck, like I’m going to say _no_?” Tony laughs, gasping when Peter pushes up the man’s t-shirt and bites at his abs, soft in this position slumped down on the couch. The belt is rich, authentic leather, and he’s torn between wanting to feel the bite of it around his wrists or the heft of it in his hands, the whistle as it cuts through the air and comes down on Tony’s ass. Peter would kiss and suck every mark away.

When Tony reaches out with shaking hands to thread his fingers into Peter’s hair, the younger man reaches up to loosen his hands and pin them back down at his sides. “Keep them there,” Peter says. “Trust me. I’ll suck you off like no one else has, but if you move your hands, I’ll get myself hard again, jerk off over you, and leave you this way.”

Tony sucks in a breath. His eyes are half-lidded, molten, but he melts, laying his hands flat on the sofa. “I trust you,” he says, one side of his mouth quirking upwards. “Show me what you’ve got, kid.”

“Yessir, Mr. Stark,” Peter teases. His cock is already tingling, threatening to fill again, but he ignores it. Tony trusts him—that makes him tingle in a whole different place, twenty-four inches or so above his cock, deep within his chest. With sure fingers, Peter unzips the man’s pants and is immediately greeted with rough but well-groomed pubic hair. Tony lifts his hips to help Peter guide his cock out, and Peter’s mouth waters at the sight. Tony is long, thick enough to be pleasing, flushed dark, cut. Without doubt, it will be the largest dick he’s ever tried to swallow.

But Peter is always up for a challenge.

Leaning forward, Peter nuzzles against the cock, letting the leaking head smear precum across his cheek. It feels like hot velvet, so smooth. His mouth opens even as his eyes close, dragging his open lips across the shaft. Tony’s scent is strongest here, musky but not unpleasant. It’s the smell of sex, the smell that makes Peter’s cock twitch in anticipation. “God,” he mumbles, pulling back and extending his tongue to lick a loving stripe across the frenulum. “Mr. Stark, why’s your cock got to be like the rest of you?”

Tony snorts, chest rising and falling rapidly. Peter can hear his heart hammering against the walls of his chest. “How’s that?”

“Perfect,” Peter groans. Tony’s cock jumps at the praise, and Peter opens his eyes just enough to see the _gone_, tortured expression on his face. Peter whines, knows he’s making himself look like a desperate little cockslut (but anything for Mr. Stark, anything to show him how incredible Peter finds him, how gone Peter is for him). “Keep your cock still, Mr. Stark, I don’t want to miss a moment of it.”

Reaching out, Peter gently takes Tony’s shaft into his hand and eases the cock up towards the man’s belly. His balls are smooth, and Peter doesn’t hesitate to lean down and lap at them, looking up through lidded eyes as Tony’s chest jumps, mouth falling open. When he sucks one into his mouth, Tony’s hand jerks from the couch and reaches out towards Peter, changing course at the last moment to return to where it was.

“I’ll ignore that,” Peter says, eyes glittering. “How long has it been since someone sucked you off, Mr. Stark?”

Tony exhales heavily. “I don’t know, kid. A long time. Months, or more.”

“That’s a crime,” says Peter darkly. He uses the hand that keeps Tony’s cock up out of his way to jerk it off with long, smooth strokes, twisting his fist a little at the head. When precum beads at the tip, Peter laps at it with the flat of his tongue, groaning at the taste. “I plan to suck you off every day for a week just to make up for that. _Twice_ a day—”

“You’re going to kill me,” Tony says. “I’m half sure that this is the most creative assassination attempt I’ve ever faced, and kid, that’s saying something—_Jesus Christ_!”

Peter has knelt up to take the head into his mouth, suckling at it softly. He wishes he had the self-control to drag it out, to push Tony’s pants down to his ankles, tug him into a deeper slouch, and tongue at his hole—but he’s been dreaming about this for years. He is just as desperate for it as Tony is, judging by the darkly flushed state of his cock. So Peter lets one hand fall to cup Tony’s sack in his palm, massaging where he’s most sensitive, and swallows him down.

It’s been a while since Peter sucked dick, but it’s like riding a bike really—and the most important aspect is enthusiasm. He’s never been more enthusiastic to please a partner and put on a show. He lets himself gag when it hits the back of his throat, once and twice and thrice until tears are in his eyes and Tony is hissing through his clenched teeth at the stimulation on his sensitive head. Peter lets saliva drip from his mouth down the shaft and slick the parts of the man he can’t swallow down yet, content to fist the excess. Tony’s hands are clenched into fists at his side, but Peter is bored with that now, tired of Tony just having to take the things he’s given.

Peter pulls off the cock, throat spasming. He reaches out with his spit-slick hand to take Tony’s fist and coax it upward into his hair. “I changed my mind,” he says, voice raw. “I want you to fuck my mouth. Please, Mr. Stark. No mercy, just a hole for you to cum in.”

The sound Tony makes is higher and breathier than Peter’s ever heard him. The fingers part, though, threading through Peter’s curls. “You’re not just a hole to me—”

“I know,” Peter says. He’s struck suddenly with unbearable fondness for this man. No one has ever shown Peter such tenderness, especially not during such a filthy, sexy moment. He finds himself strangely grateful—of course he knew that he was more to Tony than just a hole to cum in, but it’s still nice to hear, isn’t it? “We’re playing pretend. It turns me on. Does it turn you on, though?”

Tony looks torn. “I—maybe. Fuck. I’m a bad, bad man.”

“Yes,” Peter says, grinning. “You’re a very bad man. Now fuck my throat raw. Yes, sir?”

Tony nods.

Still, it takes some coaxing. For a while he is just content to rest his hand in Peter’s hair while the younger man does the work. Maybe he’s forgotten that Peter is enhanced, but it doesn’t take long before his hand is tightening, inadvertently pulling at Peter’s locks. Then his hips are thrusting up, little jerks that Peter encourages, slipping one underneath the man’s bare ass. It’s the perfect amount of rough. Peter’s cock aches, but he doesn’t bother reaching for it—that’d be a waste of a hand, a hand he could be using to touch Tony with.

When Tony finally sees that Peter can take whatever he’s given, he pulls Peter down on his cock with long strokes. The noises it makes are lewd: wet gags and gurgles, whines when Peter has longer than a split second to inhale. Peter takes it all by keeping his jaw slack, his throat relaxed, his tongue out and working every bit of that shaft that passes over it. He could do this for ages, work through the ache in his jaw and tongue, rolling Tony’s balls as they draw up. Worshipping Tony feels _so fucking good_.

“Christ, your mouth,” Tony gasps. “Where should I cum, Pete, getting close—”

Peter pulls off, giving long strokes with his fist, the cock obscenely slick with his spit. His voice is wrecked, cracking and rough: “Where would a very bad man cum?”

Tony moans, a tortured sound pulled from chest. He urges Peter’s hand away and assumes jerking himself off. “Open your mouth?”

Peter does, jaw creaking. He tries not to smile and ruin it, sticks his tongue out so that sometimes it brushes against the head of Tony’s cock. Tony’s eyes are locked on his open mouth, spots of hectic red high in his cheeks, breaths stuttering. The first stripe of cum his Peter’s tongue and chin, and Peter lets his eyes close in dramatic ecstasy as Tony cums messy across Peter’s cheeks and chin and open mouth.

“Fuck,” Tony breathes. “Look at you—I’ve never—Jesus, Peter.”

Peter lets his eyes open, jaw still loose and relaxed. He closes it just enough to ask: “Can I swallow, Mr. Stark?”

Tony’s spent cock twitches. “If—if you want to, kid. Fuck, I shouldn’t have done that. Let me get you something to spit in.”

But Peter lets his mouth click shut, swallowing audibly. He makes a show of wiping his chin clean and then licking the cum from his palm and fingers, and Tony watches with eyes wide as moons, lips parted gently. “Thank you,” Peter says brightly. “I can’t wait to do that tomorrow.”

“Definitely an assassination attempt,” Tony breathes, letting his head fall back to rest against the back of the couch. The smile he gives the ceiling is exuberant—beautiful, and Peter wishes more than anything that it had been aimed in his direction, but he’ll take whatever part of Tony he can get.

-

The next dawn finds Tony milling about the Avengers common floor. Though he is only upstairs, Tony is the last one to arrive. He finds them all in varying degrees of relaxed dress and participating in an array of domestic activities: Wanda and Vis playing chess in their pajamas; Natasha, Clint, and Steve by the windows watching the sunrise; Sam in the kitchen struggling to make the sophisticated coffee machine work.

Every few weeks, they are required to spend both recreational and vocational time together to promote team bonding and ensure that in the field they will be able to act as one unit. Every Avenger in the country who is not on an active mission is required to attend—Bruce is overseas which explains his glaring absence, Tony wouldn’t put it past Strange to be in another plane of goddamn existence, but Barnes’s absence is telling.

Even Rhodey is there, dressed in his uniform, leaning against the refrigerator door while he watches Wilson struggle to make coffee. That’s where Tony goes—Rhodey is the only one present who would welcome his company anyway—and the mirth in the warm brown eyes makes Tony smile. They hug, neither wanting to let go.

“Been too long, Sourpatch,” Tony murmurs. “You been avoiding me?”

“No, just busy as hell at the Pentagon, buddy.”

“I heard that the last PSC ended up being a bust. Some are saying the position is cursed, the US military version of the Defense Against the Dark Arts job—have you looked into Justin Hammer? I hear he doesn’t have much to do in his cell Seagate Prison.”

“Now what did I do to deserve this kind of treatment?” Rhodey asks. “Might as well ask Wilson over here to lend his expertise—he’s been trying to make a pot for the last half-hour.”

“Man, fuck you,” Wilson mutters.

“I’ll take over,” Tony offers.

“Be my guest; it’s _your_ damn machine.”

The pot is brewing when a door across the room opens, and Peter steps out. Tony has a Peter-sense of some sort, because all the world narrows down to him. He’s bought new clothes recently, sweatpants and long-sleeved knit shirts to keep him warm as the season turns cold. His curls are more riotous now (fresh from sleep judging by the yawn he gives). When he sees Tony, his face lights up. Tony winks at him.

“Have you met the newest recruit?” Tony asks Rhodey, pouring coffee in a half dozen mugs while other Avengers wander over, drawn by the smell of the fresh brew. He watches as Rhodey appraises the younger man: he doesn’t look much like a super-hero, no obvious muscles like Thor, no crackling magical aura like Wanda or Strange. Just a kid, short and thin and bare foot. “This is Peter Parker. Peter, this is Colonel S. Patch—”

“It’s an honor to meet you Colonel Rhodes,” Peter says, voice crackly from sleep.

“Nobody lets me have any fun around here,” Tony mutters, watching with a warmth in his stomach as his two favorite people shake hands. He takes a cup of coffee and sips at it, black. Pepper claims that’s best for his health, but he sometimes does miss all the cloying sugar and cream.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Rhodey says Peter while the kid opens up the cabinets and removes a box of cherry flavored pop-tarts. He holds out the box to them but both men shake their heads. They watch as he empties the box of the last two packages, packing over one thousand calories of the berry-flavored goodness into the toaster.

“Breakfast of champions,” Rhodey says, his eyebrows raised.

“Yeah kid, you’re making me look bad,” Tony chimes in, putting a hand on Peter’s shoulder. Steve is shifting around them all (he gives Peter a wide berth, very wide, though Tony doesn’t know why—) looking for sugar to put in his coffee. When he catches the look of disapproval on the Captain’s face, he pulls his hand away. “I know I’ve got some greens in the refrigerator; make it look like you partake from one of the other food groups besides Fats.”

Peter holds up the empty box of pop-tarts. “Cherry flavored, Mr. Stark. Made with real—_hey_!”

Steve bumps Tony. The jolt is enough to send the smaller, unenhanced man falling forward, reaching out with one palm to brace himself on the countertop. His coffee is a lost cause; it drenches him burning the hand that had held the mug until he drops it, porcelain clattering over the marble island.

Peter’s hand comes from nowhere, quick as the kid’s namesake, snatching Steve’s wrist like it’s a fly in a web. The grip looks painful, the tips of the thin fingers pressing white pools onto the super soldier’s skin. Their limbs jerk back and forth minutely, a brief struggle of power as Steve works to pull away and Peter works to keep him there. Tony feels frozen, the scalding coffee soaking through the layers of his dress shirt and jacket.

“Say you’re sorry,” Peter says through his teeth. Steve won’t even look at him, is still turned towards the toaster, jaw clenched tightly.

Steve says nothing.

“Say you’re sorry or I’ll rip it off,” snarls Peter. Tony has never seen him like this, his face white like bone, eyes narrow and unhinged, teeth clenched tight. _Dangerous_, Tony thinks. _The kid is dangerous._

But not to Tony.

Steve shakes his head.

“You think I won’t?” Peter asks. The grip tightens, Steve’s eyes going wide with panic. “Or you think I _can’t_? Here’s a question for you: does your super serum help you regrow limbs, or will you have to resort to a prosthetic like your friend _Bucky_? Last chance:_ say you’re sorry_.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says through his teeth.

Peter looks to Tony. “Is that good enough, Mr. Stark?”

“I—_kid_. That’s, that’s _fine_—”

Peter lets go of Steve’s arm. The grip of his hand is imprinted there, dark red and deepening. Behind them them, the toaster dings, Peter’s fruity pop-tarts popping up from its warm depths. The kid snags them, whispering, _ouch, ouch, hot_, and dips out of the room like nearly breaking a man’s hand is his typical Sunday leisure activity.

In his wake, the room is silent, all eyes trailing the young man until he disappears. Tony flexes his hand, the skin shiny pink and burned raw.

“Tony,” Steve mutters, rubbing at his own skin which is turning a tender blue from Peter’s violent grip. “The kid is way out of line. What the hell are we going to do about him?”

“Keep him?” Rhodey suggests, tenderly taking Tony’s hand and urging him towards the tap. The cold water stings, and his free hand picks at his shirt to pull the hot, saturated fabric away from his skin. When he glances up, Rhodey’s eyes are on him, frowning deeply. “First chance we get, you need to tell me what the hell that was all about.”

“Will do, platypus,” Tony murmurs.

Though truth be told—he isn’t even sure himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thoughts, criticism, compliments are welcome. Find me on tumblr @cagestark


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a tiny lil chapter, and I think the next one will be (LONG, and) the last ;)

Tony’s hand isn’t as burned as he feared. Once the initial redness wears off, the skin is just tinted pink and a little raw. Still Rhodey supervises down in Tony’s lab while the younger man applies burn cream to the tender skin. On top of all the callouses and scars that his hands already bear, he’s surprised he even feels it at all.

“I’ve never heard you so quiet before,” Rhodey says from where’s he’s seated on a stool on the other side of the lab table, the surface strewn with first aid supplies. The man’s dark eyes track his every move, mouth in its characteristic frown. “I’ve never actually heard you be quiet at all. This must be serious.”

“It’s not, really,” Tony says. But as he says it, he loses his confidence. What happened upstairs seems pretty serious: seriously concerning, seriously unexpected. In a deep, vulnerable place, Tony was seriously  _ grateful _ . “Peter is protective. I recruited him a few weeks ago when I found him scaling the side of the building.”

Rhodey’s eyebrows climb up his sloped forehead. “Mutant?”

“Enhanced,” says Tony, slowly refilling the first aid supply kit. “Bitten by a radioactive spider, believe it or not. He’s got super strength, agility, and scopulae that help him stick to nearly any surface like Velcro.”

“Goddamn.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“So why are you the surface he’s stuck himself to?” Rhodey asks.

Tony lets the question linger, pondering it. This is Rhodey, who has seen him in all manners of debauchery, who has seen every high and low of Tony’s up-close-and-personal for the last thirty years—but that doesn’t mean it gets any easier to see the disappointment in his face. It doesn’t mean that Tony doesn’t fear losing one of the last people who cares about him, who tolerates him at all.

At last Tony says, “I think he’s kind of in love with me.”

“Kid’s got a crush?”

“Yeah,” Tony admits. “And—he’s not the only one.”

Rhodey sighs, reaching up to rub at his forehead. “Jesus, Tones. How old is he?”

“Legal. Not that it makes it any better with more than twenty years between us. Steve doesn’t approve. He thinks I’m  _ grooming  _ the kid.” 

“These people don’t know you at all,” Rhodey says. “Tony.  _ Tony _ , look at me. That’s not the kind of guy you are.” 

“He’s the most righteous man alive,” Tony says. His hands shake, weakness, like leftover DT’s from the day she stopped drinking an inordinate amount of alcohol and only indulged on occasion. Weakness. All he’s made from are a dozen different weaknesses stitched together into the shape of a man. “You know me. Obviously I’m not one for self-reflection. But when the man who used to kill Nazis for a living always thinks the worst of me, maybe it’s because there is worse in me.

“Peter treats me like the sun shines out of my ass, all because I treat him like a fucking human being, but he barely knows me. If there’s one thing history has taught me, it’s that there’s Captain America’s side, and then there’s the  _ wrong  _ side. I always end up on the other side.  _ Always _ . If Peter isn’t careful, he’s going to end up there with me, and that’s not what I want for him. He’s good, I think. In his core.” 

“So are you,” Rhodey says. “None of the Avengers know you, and you don’t even know yourself. If you did, you wouldn’t let yourself be treated like this. At least this kid seems to have some sense, even if he’s subtle as a brick wielding it. I feel a lot better about spending so much time in DC knowing that someone is here and in your corner.”

-

Peter rests his forehead against one of the glass floor-length window panes in his room, mouth full of sticky-sweet cherry flavored pastry. He can barely taste it. Up this high, Manhattan looks fake beneath him, a toy city that he should take care not to step on, like the lego structures he used to leave out around May’s apartment when he was a boy. 

May. The pain of losing her never gets easier. There is no coping, there is just forgetting. Times when his mind is so full up with other things that there is no room for even her, when he’s working on a machine, when he’s training with Natasha in the gym. Then in moments like this, her memory comes rushing back in, and it’s like the grieving process starts over. She dies again to him, every day. 

_ Are you ashamed of me? _ Peter wonders, looking into the cloudless sky. There is no answer. 

May had never liked violence, but she was fierce in her own way. She believed in justice, she believed in compassion. Would she think he overreacted in the kitchen when he’d threatened to tear off another enhanced’s limb? Or would she think him justified, if she knew of the things Steve and the rest of the team had done to Tony? Just thinking about it makes his blood boil. People who had hurt Tony physically and emotionally, people who had no respect for him, people who still took advantage of every bit of his goodwill. Unremorseful people. 

Glancing down, Peter sees that he’s crushed his other poptart to crumbs. Kneeling down to sweep them into the palm of his hand, his spine goes stiff, just a brief moment of warning—someone at the door, not Steve, not Tony,  _ someone _ —before there is a firm knock. Abandoning the crumbs, Peter opens the door a crack, afraid of who might be on the other side. 

A dark, serious complexion greets him. 

“Hi,” Rhodey says. “Can I come in?” 

“Of course,” Peter says, opening the door wide to let him past. He catches a brief glimpse of the other Avengers standing huddled together, eyeing Peter’s room with wariness before he shuts the door on the image. 

It must look strange, a young man whose room is so empty. No photographs on the wall, no pile of clothes on the floor, no posters or game consoles. The bed is made (unslept in most nights, though Rhodey would have no way of knowing that sometimes Peter feels more comfortable in enclosed spaces, that he curls up inside the closet empty except for clothes hangers or that he crawls underneath the bed to sleep). Combined with his display in the kitchen, he can’t imagine what the older, distinguished man must think of him. 

“Is Tony’s hand okay?” Peter asks. He can still hear the pained hiss the man made when the steaming coffee spilt onto his bare flesh. It makes that feeling come up in Peter all over again, that feeling like he has swallowed fire, fury like acid that eats at his stomach, fury that he wants to spit out at someone. At Steve Rogers. “I should have stayed to make sure.” 

“It might blister,” Rhodey says. “But he gets worse down there in his lab on the daily. That’s not why I’m here.” 

“Why are you here then?” 

“Tony is important to me. The most important person in my life except for my own mother. I’ve been watching his back since he was a teenager, and short of dying, nothing’s ever going to change that. That’s either going to make us friends or enemies, Parker. Your choice.” 

On the lengthy list of threats Peter’s received in his life, this is easily the most charming. Rhodey isn’t even enhanced. Peter could kill him without breaking a sweat, could tear his head from his body, could pull off his arms and legs the way other kids do to spiders, to smaller, weaker creatures. But there’s still something formidable about the other man. At the very least, there is something respectable. 

“Anyone in Tony’s corner is someone I want to be friends with,” Peter admits. 

Rhodey’s expression softens. He holds out a hand that Peter meets with his own. “Then you’re alright by me, kid. You could use a lesson in picking your battles, though. It doesn’t take enhanced powers of deduction to see that Rogers wants you off the team.” 

“I’ll fight any battle that protects Tony.” 

“And when you’re on the bench because Rogers has convinced the Powers that Be that you’re too unpredictable to be in the field? Who’s going to be protecting Tony then? Too many injuries have happened on missions because not a single one of them can be counted on to have Tony’s back. You could change that, if you’d get a grip on your temper,” Rhodey says. Peter’s shoulders sag—he hadn’t even thought of that. 

“Sometimes I can’t help it,” Peter admits. “It feels like there’s this monster inside of me. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or something. When they say something bad about Tony or when they hurt him, some flip inside me gets switched. How do I  _ stop _ ?” 

“You’ve got to choose what’s more important to you,” Rhodey says. “Protecting Tony or avenging him.” 

For a long time after Rhodey leaves, Peter stands at the wall of windows, staring out unseeing at the city below while he cycles through everything that Colonel Rhodes said, wondering again and again,  _ Why can’t Peter do both? _

-

“This is like, a foreign language to me,” Peter mutters, flipping through the textbook that Tony had retrieved for him. The cover reads FUNDAMENTALS OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING. The glossy margins are filled with Tony’s tiny scrawl, and Peter runs his fingers reverently over the writing trying to imagine a fifteen year old boy scribbling on each page. He’s seen pictures, newspapers archived on the New York City Public Library computers of a young, handsome boy crouched beside a robot he built, smiling into the camera. Fifteen years old, and this had been nothing to Tony. Peter is twenty and it takes him ages to get through a single paragraph, googling foreign terms on his phone and struggling to understand the abstract concepts. 

Tony glances up from his StarkPad. He balks at the expression on Peter’s face and turns the tablet off, sitting it aside. “Come over. We can go through it together.” 

“You’d explain it to me?” Peter asks, raking his eyes over the older man’s face. Fuck, Tony is so handsome. That look he’s giving Peter, too, the unbearably tender kind, the fond kind, it makes him all the more beautiful. He’s not above asking Tony for help. His pride was one of the first things he had to let go of when he began to live and sleep rough. “I feel like an idiot.” 

“You’re far from an idiot,” Tony says. He pats the seat next to him and they sit shoulder to shoulder, close enough that Peter can soak up the man’s warmth, struggling not to sway ever closer. Tony has his own gravity, and Peter often feels helpless to it. “You’re self-taught. It’s no wonder that a lot of this technical jargon isn’t connecting.” 

They make it through the first chapter together, and Tony was right—much of it Peter was familiar with, though it hadn’t been presented in terms he knew. Tony is an excellent teacher, too. Patient and insightful, witty. He soothes Peter’s fears that he isn’t smart enough, builds confidence in him that maybe he could learn to be an engineer the way he’d always dreamed. 

“We should send you to school,” Tony says afterwards, handing Peter a chilled Coke from the refrigerator. “An Avengers Scholarship, maybe. Full ride, all the amenities, only the best schools and tutors.”

“You mean you won’t be my  _ private  _ tutor, Mr. Stark?” Peter asks, letting his eyes get wide and sweet. Most older men find the guileless thing sexy, but Tony just laughs at him. 

“I wouldn’t want to put your education in jeopardy. People will hardly be able to say I’m an unbiased educator,” Tony says. The warm, dark eyes drop to Peter’s mouth for just a moment before looking away, drinking deeply from his own Coke. “Though I’m sure we could come up with some incentive program for good grades.” 

“Incentive program,  _ oh _ ,” Peter laughs. “I like the—”

An alarm begins to sound, loud enough that Peter feels it in his teeth and deeper. It’s louder, harsher than the sound of Tony’s doorbell. The reaction it evokes in the older man is visceral as well, eyes going wide, jaw going tight as he taps at his glasses. The sound cuts out of the penthouse, but Peter can hear it continuing on in the floors below. 

“What’s wrong?” Peter asks. “Are we under attack?” 

“ _ Someone _ is. That’s the alarm for the Avengers to assemble.” 

-

The people under attack are on the west coast. Some ‘half-rate magician’ (Dr. Stephen Strange’s words, not Peter’s) had accidentally conjured inter-dimensional creatures that they couldn’t control nor send packing. The Avengers are being sent to round them up and with the assistance of Dr. Strange, send them back to where they’ve come from. 

For the first time, Peter meets Director Nick Fury, a black man with one eye and a direct way of speaking that Peter can appreciate. Around the table are seated seven other Avengers: Natasha, Steve, Clint, Sam, Wanda, Vision, and Tony himself. After Fury ends his briefing on the situation, Steve stands and begins to formulate the briefest bones of a game plan and—

Peter isn’t in it. 

“Sorry, kid,” Steve says. “You’re not yet cleared for field work. Maybe next time.” 

“I’ve been working with Natasha for weeks,” Peter says. Colonel Rhodes words play on a loop in Peter’s brain, and they’re his lifeboat in the sea of anxiety that threatens to drown him. Peter needs to stay calm and play it cool. It’s the only way he’ll be allowed to have Tony’s back, and he  _ must have Tony’s back _ . “This seems like the perfect mission for me to get my feet wet.” 

Tony sits beside Peter, silent and stiff. Director Fury watches all of them with a cool, knowing gaze when he says, “He’s got a point, Captain.” 

“We’ve got protocols for a reason,” Steve says. “Putting you in the field before you’re ready is an easy way to get hurt, Pete. Sorry, but the answer is no.” 

All eyes turn to Fury, who nods to Steve magnanimously. “Don’t look at me,” he tells them. “That’s your team leader. It’s his call.” 

Peter listens to the rest of the plans with his hands clenched in his lap, knuckles turning white. He cycles through every stage of grief, and as soon as the team breaks to head to the room where the helicarrier will take them to California, Peter catches one of Tony’s wrists to keep him from filing out of the room, just another soldier under Captain Rogers’s command. 

“Please don’t go,” Peter mutters. Director Fury watches them unabashedly, his arms crossed. Tony lifts a hand to ruffle Peter’s hair, but the expression on his face is downright grim.

“Don’t worry about me, kid,” Tony says softly. “I’ve been doing this gig for years now, and I haven’t died yet.” 

That doesn’t comfort Peter at all. When Tony leaves, he takes all the warmth with him until Peter feels chilled to the bone. 

“Parker. Nice to officially meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Director Fury says. He doesn’t offer his hand to shake, and neither does Peter. 

“From who?” Peter wonders out loud. “Captain Rogers?”

Fury hums noncommittally. “Don’t worry about Stark. He is an asset to the Avengers, and I will do all I can to ensure his safety.” 

“With all due respect Director Fury—he is not just an  _ asset _ ,” Peter says. Too afraid of what else might come from his mouth, come straight up from that dark place inside of him fueled by fear and anger and hurt, Peter lets his feet guide him back to the elevator. Without asking, FRIDAY takes him up to Tony’s penthouse. When Tony gets back, Peter plans to move back in (so long as the older man wants him to). He tells himself that again and again.  _ When  _ Tony gets back.  _ When _ . 

Peter sits and he waits.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> comments and criticisms welcome.  
find me on tumblr @ cagestark


End file.
